


Rat King

by Rory Addison (LoveLikeHomicide)



Category: South Park
Genre: Alternate Universe, Body Horror, Coming of Age, Cults, Damien is genuinely evil, Experimental Style, Eye Trauma, First Kiss, First Relationship, Funerals, Horror, I'm Sorry, Kenny McCormick-centric, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mystery, Mythology References, OC is important but dies in the first chapter, Original Character Death(s), POV Kenny, POV Pete Thelman, POV Tweek Tweak, Pip suffers, Rats, Supernatural Elements, Temporary Character Death, Thriller, rednecks know nothing about Egyptian mythology, the Dip here is dark AF
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-19 15:15:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 41,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22712827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoveLikeHomicide/pseuds/Rory%20Addison
Summary: After his sister’s friend dies, fourteen-year-old Kenny McCormick is dragged into the world of magic, necromancy, and bastardised mythology.Meanwhile, Pete is watching his boyfriend deteriorate and lamenting his own involvement with the same strange, dark magic.And Tweek Tweak has the misfortune of being the key to solving both their problems, if he can just organise his thoughts for long enough to realise it.
Relationships: Craig Tucker/Tweek Tweak, Kenny McCormick/Butters Stotch, Mike "Vampir" Makowski/Pete Thelman, Mike Makowski/Pete Thelman, Phillip "Pip" Pirrip/Damien Thorn
Comments: 15
Kudos: 56





	1. Rat Boxing (Kenny)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is a sort of experiment in styles for me. Each of the three point-of-views will be written in a distinctly different style, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to maintain consistency. I'm quite proud of this chapter, so please let me know if future Kenny updates stray too far from this.  
> Pete chapters will probably be done in my usual style (if you've read my other Goth Kids stories), and Tweek's will be... Interesting.
> 
> Enjoy!

Game night is at Cartman’s new house. It used to be at Stan’s old house, but Stan’s family moved to Tegridy Farms four years ago and no one wanted to catch three buses just to have our game crashed by a towel smoking-up. Cartman’s new house is also Clyde’s. His mum and Clyde’s dad married two years after Clyde’s mother died, but it took another two years for them to move in together. This was Cartman’s fault. But while Cartman may be stubborn, he has nothing on Mr Donovan. Mr Donovan could win a standoff with a bullet-train. Or an actual bullet. Liane doesn’t allow guns in the house anymore.

They don’t own many board games, so we take turns on the PlayStation. Cartman is playing Butters in some combat game I don’t remember the name of. I sit on the brown leather couch beside Stan and Kyle. Butters is at my feet. He flinches with each hit to his character, his back sliding against my shins.

Clyde never joins us for game night. He spends Friday’s with Jimmy, Token, and their North Park friends. Clyde’s best friend isn’t actually from North Park, he just goes to North Park Middle School. It has nicer facilities. Nice facilities are important to teenage boys. It definitely isn’t because of all the cute boys who don’t wear hats or six-inch thick jackets all year round.

‘Slow down there, Eric.’ Butter shakes his head to the side like he’s shaking water out of his ear.

‘Pfft, it’s not my fault you suck at video games.’

‘I do not! I’m real good at Overcooked and My Disney Kitchen.’

Butters is a good cook. Both in real-life and in games.

‘Gay.’

The game announces Cartman as the winner. He leans back against Kyle’s legs and tosses the controller to Stan, who sets up the next game.

‘I’m bored,’ he says. Kyle kicks him in the back. ‘The fuck, Kahl?’ 

‘You’re fucking heavy, fat-ass.’

‘Excuse me?! I’ll have you know I’m buff. I can bench five-hundred pounds!’

‘You mean you can _eat_ five-hundred pounds of cheesy-poofs.’ 

Stan laughs.

‘Shut up, hippy!’

When Kyle and Cartman argue they remind me of rats. Rats mostly play by chasing or jumping on top of each other, which looks like fighting to humans. Sometimes they box. Boxing for rats means they stand on their hind-legs and push or claw at each other. I imagine Kyle and Cartman standing nose-to-nose with their nails digging into each other’s shoulders. Kyle pushes and Cartman jumps back. There’s an opening so Kyle sidles. He bites Cartman’s rump. He’s won.

If only they really settled arguments like that.

Butters puts the controller on the carpet beside him. His head is down.

While our friends argue, I flick my leg over Butters so the backs of my knees are on his shoulders. ‘You alright?’

He leans back and gives me an upside-down smile. He has a nice smile. His top canines are too far forward, like they’re trying to push in front of his incisors. His teeth are fighting for my attention. My pants ride up and he wraps his hands around my bare ankles. His fingers are warm. ‘I’m fine, Ken. You don’t need’a worry ‘bout me.’

I nod. ‘You did good. Held out longer than me.’

He laughs. ‘Yeah, I suppose I did.’

Butters’ laugh makes my face hot. Everything about him makes me feel hot. My face is probably red, so I pull up my hood and tighten it until only my eyes and nose are showing. This makes him laugh harder.

‘You’re a real weirdo sometimes, you know that?’

I nod as best I can in the too-small jacket. All my clothes are too small. Thin, too. Living on a mountain sucks balls.

Stan bumps our shoulders together. ‘We’re up.’

Butters passes me his controller. When he leans back his head pushes into my stomach. My skin is on fire.

I lose. But it’s an historic loss, I tell myself. It’s the closest I’ve ever gotten to beating Stan in a combat game. He’s as good at this as he is at Guitar Hero. He doesn’t have many hobbies.

Liane come out from the kitchen to tell us it’s time to leave.

‘ _But mum_ , I was just about to fight Kyle, and I was going to win and make him cry and look really _kewl._ ’

Kyle scoffs. ‘Yeah right. If anything, you’re to one who’d cry, fatass.’

Cartman opens his mouth to argue but his mother cuts him off.

‘No arguing, Poopsikins. You can play more with you little friends tomorrow.’

‘ _But mum!_ ’ he whines, banging a chubby fist on the ground in a subdued version of his childhood temper-tantrums.

I used to wonder how Liane coped with him, but I know now. It’s the same way all mothers in small towns deal with their problems. ‘Now, sweetie.’ She turns off the TV.

Liane Cartman takes Xanax. It’s a pill that look like blue ovaltinies and give her voice a dreamy quality. Some women are better mothers when they’re high. This is a fact. Stan’s mum also enjoys a little blue dream, but while Liane dreams all day, Sharon doesn’t take hers until around five o’clock—when her husband finishes his farm tours. Butters suspects his mother has been taking something since the incident in fourth grade, but it’s probably stronger than Xanax. The effect of Xanax is more like alcohol than a normal antidepressant, except it’s legal to take it before driving.

My mum would take it too, if we could afford it. She’s found other chemicals.

Liane wins the battle, as is usually the case, so Kyle’s dad picks up him and Stan. I offer to walk Butters home. 

‘How’s Karen goin’ in third grade? Can’t believe she’s gotten so big.’

Butters always asks about Karen. Even though it sounds like small-talk, I know he really does care. He’s the only person besides me who ever gets her a Christmas present or remembers her birthday.

‘She’s good. Mr Garrison’s back as her teacher.’

‘Thank goodness. He ain’t cut out for politics.’

I hum in agreement. After being voted out in the last election, Mr Garrison’s Twitter went dark. No one heard from him for months, and we all thought he’d gone back to the forest where he lived during his last breakdown. An orange-faced troll with a long grey beard and tattered suit, the echoes of _‘sad!’_ and _‘great again’_ whistling through the trees. Little Mike Pence and Cailyn Jenner puppets on his hands. 

Mine and Butters hands brush together and I can feel how cold his fingers are. I had to throw my gloves out because they were full of holes, but I’ve never understood why he doesn’t wear any. He pushes his fingers through mine. His cheeks are red and his eyes misty from the wind. He’s beautiful. If I could draw, I would draw him how he looks right now, but I can’t. Instead, I commit this face to memory. I do this often. Butters makes a lot of nice faces.

‘Do you mind, Ken?’ His breath comes out in clouds.

‘It’s fine.’ I squeeze his hand. His hand is smaller than mine, with short fingers and blunt nails. They fit nicely together.

‘Thanks for walking me home, Ken. I’ll see you at school.’ He lets go of my hand and waves as he heads up the footpath.

I wave back. The wind wipes away the feel of him.

I wish I could ask for more—more skin contact, more warmth, more cute faces—but I’m a coward. 

*

Anya is waiting at the front door.

Anya’s a Russian girl about Karen’s age who lives down the street. She moved in about a month ago and transferred into Karen’s class. She lives with her father, a used-car salesman who works off commission and only owns one pair of shoes, and her grandmother, who doesn’t speak English. Most people in our part of South Park only own a few pieces of clothes and can’t speak properly, so they fit in okay. Her and Karen play together every day after school. She’s the only friend Karen has ever brought home.

Tonight, her night-gown is dirty and her blonde hair matted with blood. She isn’t here to play.

I hug her. ‘What happened?’

She shakes her head. ‘I stay here?’

I nod.

We go into my room. I only have a bed with a single pillow and thin blue duvet, an empty nightstand, and a built-in closet. I used to share with Kevin but the rats in the closet kept him up a night. Stan had Tom Cruise in his closet for a while, so Kevin should feel lucky.

I give her my pillow and blanket. She curls up in a ball and I lie beside her on the naked mattress. She wouldn’t let me treat the cut on her head. When she walked, she limped like something else also hurt, maybe her legs or stomach or back. She wouldn’t tell me what happened the second time I asked, so I let it be. If you have to ask more than twice, you’re not getting an honest answer.

There are dark bags under her eyes, but she always has bags under her eyes. Maybe it’s a Russian thing. Or a communist thing. I also grew up in the snow and my skin isn’t that pale. Her grandmother’s eyes also have bags under them, and the skin sags so much she could use it as a coin purse.

Anya’s grandmother reminds me of the old lady with the gymnast granddaughters who died at Stan’s house.

I pull the blanket up so it covers her shoulders. The only sound is the squeak of rats grooming each other. With so few clothes, my closet has been filled with rat nests. They can have up to eight literal per year. I tell Anya this and she smiles.

‘Lots of pets,’ she says.

‘Lots of pets.’

Her eyes flutter shut but she forces them back open. One pupil is huge but I can’t even find the other. Like a single blue orb.

‘Do you need something to drink?’ I ask.

‘Not thirsty.’

‘Some Panadol?’

‘Do you have any?’

I think. ‘Probably not.’

She smiles. ‘Very helpful.’

‘What about something to eat?’

She groans. ‘I need food like I need a dick up my ass.’

She got that saying from my dad.

I scoff. ‘Hey, some of us don’t have other options.’

She giggles.

I consider waking Karen up so she can talk to her, but it’s a bad idea. She shouldn’t see her friend like this. When I close my eyes, Anya is still staring at me. 

When I open them in the morning, Anya Petrov is dead.

*

Anya’s funeral is on Tuesday.

The Petrov family are Orthodox Christians, but they hold the funeral in the Catholic church because it’s the only one in South Park. I’d expected to have to travel to North Park at least, since death is a very religious event, but I guess not everyone is as paranoid and God-fearing as my mother.

The church is full of mafia-looking Russian men. Five men with shaved heads and matching black suits stand beside Anya’s grandmother at the front of the church. Their hands are folded behind their backs like the bodyguards politicians have in TV shows. They’re just missing the black sunglasses and curly-corded earpiece.

Karen and I sit in the back row. She leans her head on my arm and sniffles. She doesn’t cry. This is the first time in three days she’s stopped crying. She doesn’t look sad anymore, just tired. She looks so tired. 

Butters made a tea cake for Karen, but she hasn’t eaten any. It’s mostly been me and mum. I don’t think he expected her to eat it, it was just a kind gesture. He’s like that. I packed a couple pieces in a Tupperware container and brought it with us in my backpack.

It’s not uncommon for rats to die of grief. The best way to avoid this is to show the live rats the dead rat’s body. They’re like humans in this sense. We use funerals to achieve closure in the sense that we get to say goodbye. They achieve closure in the sense that they know they weren’t abandoned. Rats who die of grief usually die waiting for their companion to come back. Pet rats have the roughest time of it when their companion is put-down since the owners don’t always bring the body home. Karen keeps asking me if I’m sure Anya died. If she could just be in a coma. When you show a rat another rat’s body the first thing they do is check the mouth for breath. They know the value of breath for life. She’s behaving like a rat. She needs to know that her friend isn’t coming back.

Anya’s grandmother gives a eulogy in Russian. After that, her father says a few words. He also speaks in Russian but then repeats himself in English. He keeps glancing at Karen throughout service. Each time my grip on her hand tightens. He’s wearing the same shoes.

Music plays and people get up to put flowers on the coffin. I recognise a guy from the local high school—Michael, I think. He was one of Stan’s friends back in his Goth phase. It’s weird seeing him without the other Goths. I wouldn’t have recognised him if it weren’t for his antique wooden cane. He comes over.

‘Hey.’ He looks between Karen and I, like he’s not sure who he’s talking to.

‘Hey.’ I don’t look at his face. Grieve is awkward. It makes people awkward. It makes them get handsy and spill their guts to people they wouldn’t normally talk to, and I don’t want that. My sympathy only extends to far. I’ve already got my hands full comforting Karen, I’m not taking on some stranger’s shit. Karen needs me all to herself.

‘You want this?’ He gives Karen a yellow rose. She nods and joins the cue to say her final goodbyes. I watch her approach the coffin. Her faded black dress looks darker beside the white of the box. The image engrains itself in my brain against my will.

Guy who is probably named Michael sits beside me. He’s wearing the same black slacks and white button-up as when I see him around town, but his black trench-coat has been substituted for an oversized grey suit-jacket. It makes his already pale and lanky body look sallow and emaciated. Maybe that’s the point. Like wearing white to a wedding.

‘Thanks for coming.’

I hum.

When Karen comes back, she’s smiling. It’s not a happy smile. Probably Michael pats her on the shoulder as he passes. He goes to stand with the bodyguards.

‘You okay?’ I ask

‘Yeah, I’ll be fine.’

I put my arm around her and she cuddles into my side.

After the service people file out into the courtyard. The cemetery is a block away, so everyone but direct family will be walking there. Karen and I are at the door when someone grabs my arm. It’s Anya’s father. ‘A moment?’

I turn to Karen. ‘I’ll meet you outside, okay?’

She nods and gives my hand a final squeeze before disappearing into the crowd of strangers. The doors shut. They don’t slam, but I imagine they do. It’s so quiet. I can hear Mr Petrov’s ragged breathing as he drags me to the front of the church, where the coffin still lays open. Flowers cover Anya’s body and encircle her head, so only her face is visible. She looks how she did Saturday morning. Sleeping. But I don’t need to check her mouth for breath to know that isn’t the case.

Behind the coffin are the five bodyguard-like men, who I now realise must be pallbearers, and the grandmother. Mr Petrov and Probably Michael stand on either side of me. Probably Michael grabs my other arm. I look between them, but they’re both staring at the body. The pallbearers have their heads down and their hands together in front of them, as if in prayer. The only person looking at me is the grandmother.

She holds her hand out and Mr Petrov forces my hand into the old woman’s. She lays her other hand on top of mine. Her skin is ice.

‘ _Ya beru tebya v muzh'ya_ ,’ she starts, her voice trembling. It echoes through the room like a wail. ‘ _Chtoby byt' s toboy vsegda, v bogatstve i v bednosti, v bolezni i v zdravii, v radosti i v pechali, s etogo dnya._ ’

‘What’s happening?’ I ask Mr Petrov. He shushes me. 

‘ _Mikhail_.’ The woman lets go of my hand.

Michael—or _Mikhail_ —grabs my hair and forces my head down towards Anya. I gasp and brace one hand against the coffin. I reach the other behind me and claw at his. His skin collects under my nails. A hot wetness runs down my finger and into my palm but he doesn’t let go. ‘Kiss her,’ he says.

‘No!’ I kick back. I can’t find his legs and my knees start to quake.

I’m close enough to smell the formaldehyde. To see the seam of her eyelids, the shine of the glue used to hold her eyes shut. If I push any harder the coffin will tip over and throw the body and the flowers all over the church floor. I don’t want that. I don’t want to be blamed for that.

I let my lips touch hers. 

Michael wrenches me back up. He lets go and I stumble into Mr Petrov, who puts his hand on my shoulder to steady me. I jerk away. I wipe my mouth on the sleeve of Kevin’s old suit-jacket, the one gifted to him for the middle-school graduation he never went to. Anya’s lips were cold and hard, like kissing a porcelain doll. Except it isn’t a porcelain doll. It’s the body of a ten-year-old girl who died in my bed.

The grandmother says something and two of the pallbearers kneel. They come up holding two identical crowns, like the one given to the prom-king. One is nestled in the coffin on top of Anya’s head. The other is handed to her father. I already know what’s coming before he places it on my head.

That’s the end of it.

Michael shoves me towards the pews and the coffin lid is shut. The five men plus Mr Petrov hoist it onto their shoulders, and I’m left standing in the aisle as it’s carried out, Michael and the crazy old bitch behind them.

I find my bag and stuff the crown into it.

Karen is waiting alone outside. ‘Kenny?’

‘We’re going home.’ I head for the sidewalk.

‘But, the burial—’

‘You already said goodbye, didn’t you?’

‘Yeah, but—’

‘Come on.’

She follows, eyes to the concrete. 

*

I hide the crown under my bed.

Karen and I split what was left of the cake for dinner. She hasn’t spoken to me since we got home, but she ate, so as far as I’m concerned everything is fine. 

Mum didn’t ask about the funeral. Dad didn’t even acknowledge us. With Randy gone, he’s the worst father in South Park, but he does care about us. No one wants to see their kids suffer and he’s dealing with this the way he deals with everything he doesn’t like. He’s drinking. I tell Karen he’s doing his best as we watch him curl up on the loungeroom carpet with the remote under his head and an empty bottle between his knees. He just doesn’t know how to help us. He liked the Petrov family. He liked that Karen had a friend she wasn’t ashamed to bring to the house.

In rat communities the father has nothing to do with his offspring. He doesn’t kill them, but that’s the most anyone expects. The presence of a father does not affect the survival or social adjustment of the pups at all. Some mother rats attack the father if he goes near their pups. That’s how our mum is sometimes. How most of their fights start.

There’s a brown stain on my mattress just below where the pillow sits. It’s shaped like a lop-sided heart. Kevin offered to switch mattresses with me but I said no. Death is a fact of life. I’m just glad it wasn’t Karen who had to share with her that night. Mum found me a new blanket though, which I’m happy about. This one is warmer than the old one.

The old one is balled-up under my bed beside the crown. It’s where I put things I don’t want to think about.

Edgar, a black rat with at least thirty-five children he ignores, climbs onto my pillow. He sniffs my ear. His nose twitches and his whiskers brush my cheek. 

My eyelids hurt whether they’re open or closed. I haven’t slept well lately. Every time I fall asleep I worry I’ll wake-up beside another dead body. Another set of solid blue eyes staring at me. She died watching me. How creepy is that?

I wonder if she knew she was dying and tried to wake me up. Maybe she let it happen. I can’t believe that—this must be my fault somehow. Maybe she didn’t have the energy to shake me awake. Maybe her voice was gone. Or, maybe she just thought she was falling asleep. Kids are supposed to be scared of dying. That said, I wasn’t afraid of death as a kid. I came too close to it too many times.

But back then I also believed in God.

SoDoSoPa’s bums shuffle outside my window. At least I’m not alone here. Their slurred voices carry me off into something like a doze, but not quite. I’m still lucid. I can still feel the blanket under my fingers. I’m still grounded. 

More shuffling. This time in my room.

‘Kare-bear?’ I open my eyes.

There’s something at the foot of my bed. It isn’t Karen. A little blonde head peaks at me over the wooden frame and blinks its curious blue eyes. Curious, _glowing_ blue eyes. It’s like one of the kids from Village of the Damned. 

‘… Anya?’ Please don’t have turned into a demon child.

She doesn’t move. She looks as surprised as I am.

‘Oh my God.’

Her fingers wrap around the frame and she pulls herself up to stand. She’s wearing the white dress from the funeral and holding a crown in her hand. I don’t know if it’s hers or mine. Her skin is peppered with the same blue bruises as when she died. Her hair is clean, though. Like she’s half-corpse, half-ghost.

‘Do you need something?’ I ask. _Something to drink? Some Panadol?_ Of course she doesn’t fucking need anything. She’s dead. She’s dead and I’m having my first guilt-induced nightmare.

She doesn’t answer. She just stands there.

She stands there all night.


	2. How Loyalty Works (Pete)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pete, like a typical angsty fourteen-year-old, chooses to emotionally torture himself over his mistakes instead of learning from them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Behold, the melodrama of youth!   
> Seriously though, this chapter is basically 'Angst: a Memoir'.

A fog of smoke ghosts from my mouth and flows through the air like a river, each breath mingling together into a literal smokescreen. The filter is burning down and heat tingles my fingers, the tease of being almost burned but not quite. I put out the dying cigarette. That’s five in an hour. I’ve spent the night piling them on the dirty concrete, a shrine to my most recent mistakes. Somewhere to channel my guilt. Apparently guilt smells like a mix of spoiled meat, burning hair and fermented fruit. Or maybe that’s just the dumpster.

‘Pete? Is that you?’ Two outlines appear, and as the smoke dissipates, they grow faces. With fangs. ‘What are you doing down here?’ Annie Bartlett asks. She’s not wearing makeup, and her orange hair is pulled into a loose ponytail. Her eyes are squinty and red-ringed, like she’s been crying. I have too, but I hope it’s not as obvious.

I pull myself up using the grooves in the brink wall. My hand slips, fingertips scraping like wood on sandpaper, and I almost trip. Larry catches me by the forearm and I shove him away. ‘I’m fine.’

I’ve been sitting in the alley between the hospital and a hospice, underneath the _No Smoking_ sign. It’s fairly new, since the old one was vandalised, according to the old man who was smoking with me earlier. He came from the hospice and dragged an oxygen tank with him, the mask attached to it hanging around his neck. I’d hoped the tank would explode, but I’m never that lucky.

‘He’s been asking for you,’ Larry says. He wrings his hands together like a nervous child, or likes he’s waiting for me to hit him. Both things are true. His instincts are sharp today. 

‘We told him you were here.’ Annie looks at her feet. ‘He’s glad. He was scared you’d abandon him.’

‘What the fuck?!’ I step forwards and yell in her face. ‘Why would he think that?! Did one of you assholes tell him that?!’ I shove Annie backwards, into Larry, and he pushes her behind him, putting himself between us.

I reach past him but he puts both hands on my shoulders to hold me back. That bitch. For the past year, I’ve been there for Mike more than any of these ass-wipes, and now they have the nerve to imply that I’m going to abandon him while he’s sick? That I’m sitting alone in an alley that smells like rotten food and piss because I want to be, not because it’s too fucking hard to be anywhere else? The cunt steps back, cowering behind Larry like the poser she is. Children of the dark my ass. 

‘Hey,’ he lets go of me and puts his hands up, palms open. ‘I know you’re hurting, but we’re only trying to help. If we didn’t think you were good for him, we wouldn’t be out here.’

I look at him—the person who’s been up for days watching over Mike; who texts me every morning asking how I am, presumably to make sure I’m not suicidal; and who comes to this disgusting place full of rats and cigarette butts after every visit to tell me how Mike is, because he knows I’m losing my mind over it— and slump against the wall. ‘I just…’ I don’t finish. I know they mean well, but there’s no possible way they could understand how I feel. Mike knew that, it’s why he never pressured me to get to know them, not even after I started making him spend time with my friends. But any retard can see how much they care about him. ‘I’m sorry.’

Larry puts his hand on my arm and guides me towards the sidewalk. It’s almost ten, and even though it’s too dark to see across the road the stars are somehow blinding. ‘I know this is hard, but he needs you, okay?’

I nod stupidly and let them drag me to the hospital doors. The white walls glow like the florescent lights above. Everywhere is white and sterile, like no one should be allowed here—like we’re tainting it. It’s as white and lifeless as a child’s coffin. The receptionist gives us a pitying look, but I can’t tell if it’s because she knows about Mike or just because we’re kids. Either way, she should mind her own business. I flip her off.

In the elevator, Annie pushes the button for the third floor. Cardiology. So, they think it’s his heart. I suppose they aren’t wrong. He didn’t agree to go along with our bullshit because he loves me from the bottom of his right kidney. Though, that would’ve made things easier. The doors open on an empty hallway. Heart-rate monitors beat rhythmically in each of the rooms we pass, though that mustn’t always be the case, considering where we are.

Last year, I spent three days in paediatrics with appendicitis. It was barely a month after Mike and started going out, and his mum was the one drove me to the hospital. I’d been in pain since I got up that morning. My friends noticed and I told them it was nothing. I told Mike the same thing when we were sitting in his room, but he didn’t believe me.

‘You look kind of pale,’ he said, wrapping his arm around my waist.

I leant my head back against his bed. We were sitting on his floor, against the side of the bed, just like how I sit at Henrietta’s house. I started sitting here out of habit and he never questioned it. ‘I’m Goth, we’re supposed to be flipping pale.’

‘Yeah, but you’re paler than usual today. It’s scary.’ He brushed the hair out of my face.

‘Good.’ I smirked, but it turned into a grimace when a pain shot through me like I’d been stabbed in the side with electric wire. ‘Fuck!’

‘Pete?’ He crawls around so he was in front of me and grabbed my face. I shook him off.

‘It’s just a pain.’

‘You need to go to the hospital.’

I kicked him in the ribs and he fell backwards. ‘Fuck that.’

He sat up and crossed his legs, frowning. ‘I’m worried about you. I know you don’t like doctors, but this could be serious.’

‘When the fuck did I say I didn’t like doctors?’

He tilted his head like a confused puppy. ‘Well, you don’t, do you?’

No, I didn’t, but he didn’t need to know that. I opened my mouth to reply but was cut off by my own groaning. My insides were on fire.

Mike’s eyes widened. ‘Mum!’ He yelled. He had his arm around me again and, before I had a chance to resist, pulled me to my feet.

I didn’t end up needing surgery, they just gave me some medicine and I felt fine by the next morning. They only kept me for a couple days to make sure I didn’t have another flare-up. Still, Mike visited every day. He said he couldn’t sleep at night without knowing I was okay.

So, why don’t I have the balls to return the favour? 

We stop outside of a single-person room and Annie opens the door. It’s dark, save the glow of the machines. I step towards the bed and take it all in. Glowing, beeping machines, and tubes with fluid going in and out of him. Two in his arm. One coming out from under the blanket on his left. Mike has a splatter of freckles above his left hip that look like Orion. I showed him Orion the constellation one night when we were camping out at Stark’s Pond, so he took off his shirt to show me Orion the marks. I tried to connect them with Sharpy, but they were too close, so the ink bled together into a giant black stain. He thought it was funny. I used to tease him about them when we were alone, but I never told anyone else, because he said I was the only person beside his mother who’d ever seen them. I guess everyone’s seen them now.

His face is sunken and whiter than I’ve ever seen it, even with make-up on, except for around his eyes, where the skin’s almost black. His voice echoes in my head. _You’re paler than usual today. It’s scary._

I’m not scared, even if I’m shaking. I’m not scared of doctors or death or losing people I love. Those’re just facts of live. Things we all need to get used to.

I touch his hand. It’s cold.

He squeezes my palm and I can feel his erratic pulse. His body and the drugs they pumped into him are fighting to keep his heart beating. It’s quick and irregular and panicked. If he weren’t in the hospital he’d already be dead, and if they don’t figure what we did to him he’ll die soon anyway. His heartbeat is strong, but unsustainable.

All the weight in my body drops to my feet, and I feel like I’m falling. The room twists and distorts like my eyes have rolled out of skull. My head hits the floor, but it doesn’t because I haven’t actually moved. Can’t move. My vision is grainy and my brain’s spilling out of my ear, boiled into slush. My head throbs.

I feel that kind of dizzy. That kind of wrong.

If I open my mouth I’ll throw up, but it won’t be bile. This sickness is deeper than that. Every piece of my is being separating from the rest and crashing to the cold, linoleum floor. But it’s also not, because I can’t move.

I’m not scared.

‘The doctor says they’ll move him to the paediatric ward once they figure out what’s happening.’ Annie says it like it’s something I should look forward to, but it’s never going to happen. They’ll never figure out what we did.

He might die here, I remind myself. I’ve been repeating this on a mantra, making lists of what I could have done differently, because really, making myself feel like shit is the only thing I can do. It’s not like I can change anything now. Even if I told them what caused this, it’s not like they’d believe me, and then I’d die too. I can be a traitor or a coward, and Mike dies either way. I force my heavy arm out and grab the plastic hospital chair, pulling it behind me so I can collapse. I’m a puppet with no one here to pull my strings.

He’s on his back with his arms by his sides, palm’s up. The last time he laid like that was over a week ago, and the memories won’t leave me alone.

Mike on the floor, smiling at me. The tips of his fangs poke out.

Henrietta’s scream.

Mike’s green eyes rolling up into his head.

Blood in his mouth and his nose and on his shirt.

Gravel digging into my knees as I pull him up. He doesn’t move. Hot blood running down my arm.

His nails digging into my arms as he shakes, finally, and mouths my name.

He’s mouthing it again now, no voice coming out. Or maybe it is and I just can’t hear him. 

‘I can’t do this.’ I bolt from the room, down the hall and to the stairwell. It’s cold and everything is made of concrete, but I can breathe here.

I slam my palms into the wall, the pain ricocheting through my bones. I repeat this until my hands are stiff and numb. Then, I drag them down, leaving two pink, hand-shaped streaks.   
I need a cigarette, but I’m beside the cardiology ward, and I’m not fucked-up enough to pull that shit. I look at my hands, covered in red dots and fresh blue bruises. I haven’t gone completely over the edge yet.

My phone rings. Michael’s voice, silky and baritone, calls out to me from the ringtone I’ve had since fifth grade. I don’t hesitate to answer. I need anything else to think about right now. I can’t keep my mind in this place. ‘Yeah?’

_‘I found him. Everything’s set up.’_

I sigh. I can’t believe he wants to involve me in this, even after everything that’s just happened with Mike. ‘Look, Michael, I’m kind of busy right now. I’ve got a lot of shit going on—’

_‘So do I, but this is important. I’ve already called the others, so either you’re with us or you’re not.’_

I look at the wall. ‘You know I’m with you.’

What I want doesn’t matter. He needs me. Everyone fucking needs me tonight.

_‘Good. I’ll text you the details. Don’t be late.’_ He hangs up.

‘Bastard.’

I follow the stairs down to ground-level. My hands pulsate, and I’m dimly aware of the pain in my legs and exhaustion in my chest. I need to cough but I ignore it; the last thing I need is to collapse in front of hospital staff and end up admitted. I’m not sick, just tired. I’m so fucking tired, but I’m getting used to it. I’m going to have to stay tired for a long time.

I don’t get to be okay when no one else is.

That’s how loyalty works.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: back to Kenny.


	3. Stark’s Pond is a Great Place to get Laid (Kenny)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cartman has pink-eye. Michael has a plan. Kenny has to deal with a lot of bullshit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm more proud of this chapter than is probably justifiable. I just love the tone.

‘Dammit Cartman, will you stop rubbing your eye?!’ Kyle throws down his pencil.

On Wednesday mornings we have homeroom in the library. This means pretending to do homework while two hairless rats box. In the Summer, when everyone’s half-naked and sweating, it’s closer to rat sumo. I don’t blame Kyle for being pissed off. Cartman’s been rubbing his left eye non-stop since the bus. It’s beyond swollen and the pupil is so dilated it looks like he’s wearing a black contact-lens.

‘Shut up _Kahl_ , it’s just pink-eye.’

‘Gross dude!’ Stan pushes his laptop to the opposite side of the table. ‘I don’t want pink-eye.’

‘Yeah fat-ass, go home if you’re sick.’

‘It’s not my fault that my stupid bitch mum would rather be at work than looking after her poor, sick son.’

‘Your mum’s great,’ Kyle says, ‘she probably just thought you were faking, _like usual_.’

‘Screw you, Mr Perfect Attendance. You’re just mad ‘cause I don’t have to suck a geriatric teacher’s balls for good grades.’ He jabs a finger in Kyle’s shoulder.

Cartman does get good grades. There are more full-proof ways to cheat than ball-sucking.

‘Sick! Don’t touch me with your disease-covered hands!’

Someone shushes us from between the bookcases.

‘Hah, he told you Kahl.’

Kyle rolls his eyes. 

‘Heya fellas!’ Butters pulls out the empty seat beside Cartman. 

‘Don’t sit there Butter, Cartman has pink-eye.’ Stan doesn’t look up from his computer. He doesn’t need to look to know he just left Butters’ go-to seat.

Butter’s scrunches up his face. ‘Icky. Thanks Stan.’ He sits one seat over, next to me. I wish Cartman was sick every Wednesday.

‘Fuck you too, Butters.’ Cartman scowls and crosses his arms. This doesn’t last long and the finger makes its way back into his eye.

‘How you doin’, Ken?’ Butters asks. He smiles that tight smile where his eyes don’t crease because he isn’t really happy, he just doesn’t want me to worry. I wish he didn’t worry about me worrying so much.

‘I’m surviving.’ I offer my own fake smile. I’m sure it’s just as not reassuring as his.

‘Oh, right. Didn’t someone die or something?’ Kyle says.

Stan lowers his laptop screen. ‘Shit, I heard about that. You okay?’

I shrug. ‘You know, shit happens. Bad shit.’ I spent most of Saturday going over the details with the police. Then I had to explain it to Karen. I don’t think I could take doing it again. After what happened last night, I don’t even want to say her name.

‘Is Karen okay?’ Butters always asks the right questions.

‘She’s better than she was Saturday, so that’s good.’ I spent Saturday through to Monday sitting with Karen in her room while she cried and found new ways to punish herself for other people’s fuck-ups.

‘She didn’t come to school, did she?’

‘She did, but it’s because she wanted to. She wants to clear up any rumours that might’ve started spreading.’ Rumours spread fast in small towns.

‘Oh yeah, that reminds me,’ Cartman wipes his hand on his jumper. His eyelid is thick and purple. ‘According to Clyde, who heard it from Jimmy, who heard it from some North Park fag, a Russian fifth grader was murdered Friday night. Apparently, her mum escaped from a Yakuza bathhouse and now they’re after her dad so they can, like, sell his organs on the black market or some shit to pay back her debt. Foreigners are fucking scary.’

‘Stupid rumour like that.’

*

Michael has been following me all day.

I first saw him at recess. A fact about me: I’m much more observant than my friends. He was smoking by the fence a few feet away from us and watching me. No one else noticed. I didn’t say anything because no one else noticed. I’m like that sometimes. It’s a bit counterintuitive, but no one knows what big words like counterintuitive mean in South Park, so what does it matter?

He followed us when we moved from the basketball court to the sports oval. I tried to get Stan to look that way, seeing as they were friends a few years back so maybe he’d say something, but he can be as dense as a black hole sometimes. Michael sat under a tree and filled the hollow with cigarette butts.

We played football but I couldn’t concentrate. I ended up taking the ball to stomach twice, then had to pull out so I could go throw up. It was entirely his fault.

Butters pushed the hair out of my face and held it behind my ear. He smiled as he wiped the side of my mouth with a tissue. ‘You okay, buddy?’

My hair is nearly to my shoulders and sometimes I consider cutting it, but then stuff like that happens and I change my mind. I fought the urge to grab his hand. No one wants to hold hands with someone who smells like vomit. ‘Yeah. Not sure about the flowers, though.’ I threw up on a rose bush.

He gave the roses a pensive look. ‘I’m sure they’ll be fine.’

Michael was back at lunchtime. He sat at the table beside ours with two friends I also recognised from elementary school. An overweight girl with purple lipstick lit a cigarette at the end of a long black cigarette holder. Cartman swatted it out of her hand and told her to fuck off. Stan yelled at Cartman for being a dick. Cartman _was_ being a dick but Stan’s old friends are weird. Stan picked the holder up and handed it back to the girl like nothing was off. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe they actually sat there all the time and I was just overreacting.

I caught Michael’s eye and he raised his eyebrows at me like he hadn’t expected me to remember him. Of course I fucking remembered him. There are three things a teenage boy never forgets: his first kiss, his first fuck, and the first time a creepy Goth guy forces him to smooch a corpse.

Karen meets me outside my last class. The elementary school finishes fifteen minutes before the middle school and the buildings are on the same street. Her cheeks are red.

‘Hey Kare-bear, how was your day?’

She frowns. ‘People are so mean.’

‘They are.’

Butters come up behind her and puts his arms around her shoulders. ‘Hey there Karen, how’re you holdin’ up?’

She shrugs.

‘It’ll get better.’

‘Ken said the same thing.’ She tilts her head back and pokes him in the nose. He wiggles it.

‘Well, trust your brother.’ He steps back and ruffles her hair.

‘Don’t do that!’ Her lips arch up as she tightens her ponytails. Butters can make anyone smile.

We walk on either side of Karen and turn down the hallway towards our lockers.

Turns out I didn’t overreact. I know this because Michael’s waiting at my locker with one of his weird friends. The one with half-red-half-black hair and acne scars on his cheeks. He’s frowning at his feet like he doesn’t want to be there. I don’t blame him. I wouldn’t want to be stuck standing next to Michael either. He might drag him to a funeral and we all know what he does at those. I hope he doesn’t abuse his friends the way he does grieving strangers.

‘Isn’t that the flower guy?’ Karen asks. I push her and Butters back into the previous hallway. 

‘Can we go to your house?’ I ask Butters.

‘Well sure you can, I just need to get my homework.’ He tries to step around me but I block his path.

‘Now,’ I lower my voice, ‘it’s an emergency.’

He pales. ‘Gee, I suppose if it’s that important to ya.’

I grab Karen’s arm and head towards the back exit. ‘Kenny, what’s wrong?’

‘Nothing. Nothing’s wrong at all.’

‘That hurts!’ She squirms but I don’t let go until we’re outside.

‘Sorry,’ I say.

She rubs her arm and glares at me. ‘Boys are so violent.’

We continue walking and she grabs my hand. It’s her way of showing forgiveness. 

Butters reaches over Karen’s head and puts a hand on my shoulder. I arch my head down and rub my cheek on his knuckles.

‘Thanks, Butters.’

Butters unlocks the front door. His house is cold and smells like his mother’s sugary perfume. ‘Just take a seat anywhere.’ Karen and I sit on the couch. ‘Do you want anything to eat or drink?’

Karen shakes her head. ‘No, thank you.’

‘We’re good.’ _I need food like I need a dick up my ass._ I take a couple deep breaths.

His shoulders loosen. He can relax now that he’s fulfilled those all-important hostly obligations, no doubt beaten into him since birth. I don’t like to think too hard on Butters’ familial situation, just as I’m sure he doesn’t like to think too hard on mine. Those things are out of our control. ‘Well, it was nice of you two to come over, what’da want to do?’

He doesn’t ask why we needed to come over so suddenly, he knows not to ask about anything that could upset Karen. He’s a good friend.

‘Do you have games?’ Karen asks, eyeing the PS4.

He beams. ‘Well of course I do. What do you want to play?’

He kneels in front of the TV and pulls a stack of PS4 games out of the cabinet drawer. He puts them on the coffee table and Karen slips down onto her knees to look at them. Most of them are G-rated with pink and purple covers. She looks at me. ‘Kenny, what do you want to play?’

I hold up my hand. ‘I think I’ll sit this one out. You guys have fun, though.’ I know Butters taste in games and it’s far closer to Karen’s than my own.

They settle on Overcooked only because it’s Butters’ favourite. Karen’s never played a cooking game before, but she likes a challenge. They sit on the floor in front of the TV and pleasant orchestral music plays as they pick their characters. Butters is a lot happier than he was at Cartman’s. He has a straight posture and his hands aren’t shaking.

I lay across the couch and watch them. 

The music turns operatic. Karen struggles in the first round but Butters doesn’t let her panic. He pays more attention to her than the screen and tells her what to do whenever she starts to struggle. Unlike our other friends, he isn’t mad when their team scores low, he’s simply happy she’s having fun. He tells Karen she did a good job.

‘Did you see that?’ She spins and grins at me.

‘Yeah, I’m watching,’ I say. Butters is fidgeting with the sleeve of his pale blue jumper. Every shirt Butters owns is a different shade of blue. Looking at him makes my eyes damp. ‘You two make a good team.’

He smiles at his hands.

*

She’s back.

Karen and Butters played cooking games until his mother got home. She invited us to stay for dinner but I don’t enjoy extended interactions with Butters’ father, not even if it means free meatloaf. Butters understood. He hugged each of us before we left. Karen said I look cute when I blush, which is ridiculous because I wasn’t blushing. Touching Butters just makes my face hot. And by touching I mean hugs because we’ve never done anything more intimate than that. If we did I might explode.

Rats are nocturnal and mine spend the nights playing. I fell asleep to the chirps of new pups. I think this litter’s Cecilia’s. She’s a whore, even by rat standards.

I dreamed I was in a burger-making competition against Butters, except I was representing City Wok and for some reason he represented the Krusty Krab. I was just about to lose horribly when a voice called my name.

A girl’s voice.

Not Karen’s.

I opened my eyes and Anya was sitting cross-legged at the end of my bed. The crown is in her lap. There’s blood on her face that wasn’t there last night.

She says my name again but her lips move differently. Like one of those badly dubbed foreign films we had to watch in Social Studies. She’s see-through in parts, like her arms and forehead, but the rest is solid. Her eyes are solid.

I take a deep breath and focus on not shaking. Or crying. The light coming from her eyes is unsettling. It makes the memory of her dead eyes from Saturday morning even more visceral. ‘What do you want?’

‘Please, help me.’ Her lips keep moving. They echo her requested three more times in silence.

‘How?’

‘Find him, he’ll tell you.’

‘Who?’

She scrunches up her brow like she’s trying to remember something. ‘You know who he is.’ She closes her eyes and nods.

Either she’s lost her memory or we’re playing the cryptic game. ‘Do you mean Michael?’

She nods faster. ‘He’ll know what to do. He will. He always does.’

She mouths something else and her eyes flash with primal fear. I would know that look anywhere.

‘What?’

‘Find him, Kenny.’

Whatever that was seems to have left her mind.

‘Okay.’ I don’t want to speak to him again, but I want to argue with a ghost even less. 

*

It’s Thursday morning. Michael’s back beside my locker.

‘What do you want?’ I ask.

He rolls his eyes. ‘Finally.’ He drags me by the arm into an empty classroom. I sit on the closest desk. No teenager uses a chair when adults aren’t around. ‘You’re coming to a meeting tonight. I’ll get you from Starks Pond at nine. Someone else will explain everything.’

‘A meeting? Like a cult? Spooky. Is this someone else your leader?’

Michal glares and pulls out a cigarette. ‘Don’t be late, conformist.’

That wasn’t a no.

‘Did Anya tell you to do this?’ I don’t know why I’m asking. If he hasn’t been sent by her ghost I’ll look crazy. Or worse, if Anya isn’t actually a ghost and it’s just guilt messing with me, then I am crazy.

Either way it’s like I’m advertising my mental deterioration. Tickets for sale at the door. 

The cigarette pauses on the journey to his mouth. His eyebrow raises. ‘She spoke to you?’

I nod.

‘That was fast.’

The bell rings. Michael opens his lighter. ‘You can go now.’

The halls are quiet. I open my locker and am relieved when no bats or venomous spiders crawl out. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was trying to kill me. I wish I knew how to check for curses.

‘The fuck’s up your ass?’ Cartman asks from a few lockers down. His entire eye has turned red and the veins are swollen. In parts, the brown iris has paled to blue.

‘Shit man, your eye!’

He grins. ‘I know, right. I’m not even in class a full minute and the teacher is already sending me home. I can’t see but at least I don’t have to sit through two fucking hours of algebra.’

He knows his priorities. ‘Feel better, I guess.’

‘Screw that! Maybe if it’s chronic they’ll let me work from home.’ He shuts his locker and spins in a circle. ‘Have fun in maths, loser!’

I do not have fun in maths.

*

Stark’s Pond is in the forest just behind the wooden South Park sign. I heard dad say Kevin was conceived at Stark’s Pond. I think what he means is that Kevin was conceived on the backseat of grandpa’s Ford Cortina. Or that he was too drunk to remember where Kevin was conceived and just wants the night he ruined mum’s life to sound romantic. I wouldn’t mind getting laid at Stark’s Pond. 

It took me almost forty-five minute to walk here from home. It would have only taken me twenty minutes from school but I had better things to do this afternoon than watch ducks swim. I don’t mind sitting here at night, though.

Stark’s Pond is the only place in South Park where you can see the stars. We have a lot of light pollution for a mountain town. I’m right underneath Orion. Its stars are Rigel, Bellatrix, Orionis… That’s all I can remember. A kid pointed them out to me in elementary school.

Michael arrives at 9:15. He’s dressed in his usual white button-up, black slacks and trench coat. His curly hair is styled into a round pompadour. It looks ridiculous. 

‘You’re late,’ I say.

He shrugs.

We walk to the main road. The one dad was probably parked on when he conceived Kevin in the back of his father’s car. A black SUV is waiting for us. It looks like something a pompous senator would ride around in while his personal assistant, a thin woman in a pencil skirt and rectangular glasses who will one day birth his illegitimate child, reads him his morning agenda. Michael opens the back door and gestures for me to get in. There’s a tinted glass window separating us from the driver.

‘Are you with the Russian mafia?’ I ask, because at this point it’s not a stupid question.

He rolls his eyes. ‘Shut up and sit still. We’ll be there soon.’

Again, not a no.

While we drive, he pulls out his phone and texts someone. His expression is neutral. Unimpressed. It reminds me of Wendy’s bitch face. As class president, I wonder if she’ll be the one to eulogize me when I’m inevitably found in a dumpster with a rope around my neck or a bullet hole in my head.

I pull out my own phone and debate sending someone a message. Nah. I wouldn’t want to bother my friends over nothing. Also, if he is planning on killing me and desecrating my body, I don’t want one of them to become his next target. Butters’ face comes to mind, pale and bloated, and my stomach rolls. Fuck that.

We pull over behind City Wok, across from the entrance to CtPa Town Lofts. Not many people live there. Not many can afford to.

I follow Michael across the street and into the lobby.

Everything is hospital-white. Circular, white leather couches surround a glass coffee table. The TV on the wall is twice as big as Cartman’s. The woman behind the help desk looks at me like I’m scum.

Swanky.

Michael presses the ‘up’ button on the elevator. This is the sort of place that uses words instead of pictures. The elevator doors open and I hesitate. My sneakers, which have holes in the toes, squeak as I slide one foot back. There’re no black-suited mafia men around. I could run if I wanted to. Michael glares at me. He’s good at that.

I could run, but I don’t. I’ve already come this far.

I stand beside Michael. The mirrored walls show a scruffy boy with knotted hair and pants that stop just below his knees. This boy is goose-bumped and bruised and has dried vomit on his sleeves. He looks wrong beside the polished walls and well-dressed young man, like if you cut out a photo of one of those starving African kids and glued it to a perfume ad. 

Michael presses ‘six’ and inserts a keycard into a slit below the not-numbers. We start moving.

The elevator doors open into a living room. The carpet is grey, the back wall is a floor-ceiling window, and there’s a kitchenette to the left. The room has no furniture, but what it does have is teenagers. Seven of them sitting in a circle.

Of all the things I didn’t expect, I expected this the least. CtPa Town Lofts isn’t a place for teen piss-ups.

Michael grabs my arm again and drags me over to them. I feel like a leashed dog.

A boy around my age with black hair and a black turtleneck stands up. There’s a green glass bottle at his feet that he’s careful not to knock over. He holds out his hand. His fingers are almost as long as Michael’s and his nails are painted black. ‘Welcome, Kenneth. It’s nice of you to finally join us.’ His voice is familiar. It calls out to a distant memory, something bad that happened to me. Something I don’t think I want to remember. The way the light hits his brown eyes makes my stomach drop into my balls and not in a good way.

I shake his hand. It’s colder than death. ‘Yeah, sure.’

‘I’m Damien, by the way. I’m not surprised you don’t remember me. This beside me is Pip. Him, I hope you do remember.’ He points to something on the ground beside him and I choke back bile.

I remember. Oh, damn right I remember Pip Pirrup and that isn’t him. The boy on the ground is barely the size of a sixth grader and only half his body looks human. His entire left side looks like it’s been replaced by charcoal and is void of detail. No eye. No hair. No ear. The left side of his nose is like a silhouette, the nostril missing. His hand is a stub. His remaining blue eye is vacant and there’s drool running down his chin. His clothes are a larger version of what he wore in elementary school and far from clean.

‘What…’ My voice dies. 

‘There was an,’ he pauses. His eyes search above my head, as if I have words floating there like fish. ‘Unfortunate,’ he decides on, ‘accident, but he’s fine now. Everything about him is positively smashing.’ Damien smirks. He has a hint of a British accent that makes him sound uncomfortably similar to Pip. I suspect he’s mocking him. I’m possessed with an almost overpowering need to murder them both. 

It passes.

‘Okay.’ I look to the rest of the room. Beside Pip sits the other three Goth kids. At the end, the red-haired Goth from yesterday is typing on his phone. Beside him is Craig Tucker. He looks different to how I remember him from elementary school, but I’d never forget that hat. He’s wearing a blue NASA shirt and his exposed arms are covered in scars. Not your typical self-harm scars either. These look like dozens of round puncture wounds. He’s leaning against a blond boy with hair messier than mine who appears to be counting the floorboards. ‘Hey, Craig.’

The blond screams and slams a fist into the ground. Craig puts one hand on the boy’s back and the other flips me off. It’s a wonderful sight.

‘Please, take a seat,’ Damien says. Michael sits next to Damien, who remains on his feet. I drop down next to Craig’s friend. He leans into Craig and hugs a cloth doll with yellow wool-hair to his chest. His eyes are wide and his head snaps down towards his shoulder occasionally, but he doesn’t blink. I don’t think he has eyelids.

‘It’s okay, Tweek,’ Craig says. He rubs the boy’s shoulder.

‘I’mokay!’ Tweek smacks Craig in the chest. ‘OhmyGodI’msosorryCraigpleasedon’tdie!’ He rubs both his hands up and down Craig’s chest hard enough to bunch his shirt. Craig lets him.

Alright then.

Damien picks up the bottle from at his feet. It has no label. He takes a swig and hands it to Michael, who does the same then hands it to me. Everyone watches me. I sniff the bottle and it smells like whiskey. I take a sip and it burns from my tongue all the way down to my stomach. Yep, straight whiskey. I pass it to Tweek.

The bottle makes its way around the room in silence, like some sort of knock-off blood pact. But instead of mixing blood, girl-Goth drinks a mix of alcohol and seven boy’s saliva. She hands it back to Damien and he tips some into Pip’s mouth, but he doesn’t swallow, so it ends up running down his chin and soaking into his shirt.

‘Now that you’re one of us,’ Damien looks at me, ‘we can get down to business.’

I feel like I’ve stepped into a bad horror movie. Or 2010 emo-culture.

‘What’s this have to do with Anya?’ I ask. I wish I could believe I was brought here just to get drunk in an upscale loft with some obviously unstable middle-schoolers, but I’m not that stupid. 

He smirks. ‘That’s exactly what we are about to discuss. But first, Tweek?’

‘Gah!—Okay!’ Tweek lays the cloth doll between us. It looks like healthy-Pip. Sweat collects on my forehead and my balls recede inside me for safety. If you want to know how a boy is really feeling, ask about his balls. They never lie.

‘My, Kenneth, there’s no need to be frightened. This is just a little initiation ritual—something to help you understand us better.’ 

Damien tosses a pocket knife towards us. Tweek looks between it and me. ‘Go ahead, man!’ He bites his lips and blinks hard. So, he does have eyelids. Very aggressive ones.

I pick up the knife. ‘What do you want me to do?’ As the words are leaving my mouth, I look pointedly at Craig’s mutilated arms. I’m not doing that. 

Damien sits down and wraps an around Pip. He looks, just as pointedly, at the doll. ‘Whatever you like.’

I think for a moment. Then another. My brain feels funny. Soft funny, like there’s cotton in my head. That alcohol must’ve been stronger than the stuff we drink in Stan’s barn. But Randy doesn’t buy the cheap shit. There’s cotton on my tongue as well. ‘Don’t feel good.’

Michael puts his hand on my wrist and guides it towards the doll. Right. That’s what I was doing. I pull my hand from his grip and slide the knife across the doll’s right cheek. I look up in time to see a larger, deeper version of the cut appear on Pip. It’s jagged, like the knife used was shaking, and reaches all the way from his cheekbone to the blackened tip of his nose. Blood goes into his hair and his mouth and onto the collar of his shirt. His hand spasms but nothing changes in his face. I drop the knife.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I whisper.

Damien laughs. ‘Don’t be, he doesn’t feel a thing!’

I doubt that.

He runs his finger along the cut. His eyes glow with fascination.

‘How’d that happen?’

‘Magic.’

What?

Tweek grabs the doll and shoves into the pocket of his jumper. ‘Gottafixitlater.’

‘It’s the power of Osiris, Lord of the underworld.’

The Egyptian dude?

‘Anya,’ Michael says.

‘Yes, it’s through his power we’re going to bring Anya back to life.’

I want to laugh. I should be laughing. I’ve been dragged into a cult of edgy rednecks trying to summon an Egyptian God for necromancy. And Craig fucking Tucker is a part of it. Is this what they call alternative comedy?

‘And why do you need me?’

‘Osiris rose from the dead through Isis, his wife.’ Damien says. ‘The branch of Osiris’s magic we plan to use can only resurrect a person’s spouse, not a friend or relative.’ He glances at Michael. ‘You were married to Anya at her funeral, and have since been accepted by her lingering spirit, so only you can perform the ritual.’

So this is all because I was the only male at the funeral Anya wasn’t related to? Figures. Of course her family can’t just grieve like normal people. Of course they have to involve some crazy cult bullshit. This is South Park, after all.

I’ll be the first to admit it: I’ve gone along with a lot of convoluted nonsense. Sometimes, it’s fun. Other times, it’s just a way to kill a boring afternoon. But this is where I draw the line.

I stand up. ‘No. I’m not doing it.’

I try to step away but Michael grabs my ankle and digs his nails in. ‘Sit down.’

‘No.’ I kick him in the side and head for the door.

‘You’ve seen what we can do, Kenneth.’

‘It’s Kenny,’ I snap, ‘and I don’t care.’

The elevator opens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: still Kenny. 
> 
> The POVs for the first act of this story are pretty Kenny-heavy, but it'll balance out later on.


	4. Clyde’s Dirty Condoms (Kenny)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kenny and Butters have a moment. Michael is very much out of patience.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm less proud of this chapter than the last one, but it moves the plot forward.

It’s just past eleven when I reach the park. If I go home now dad will still be up and he might smell the alcohol on me. He might ask questions. Dad doesn’t really care if I drink, but he knows he’s supposed to, so he pretends. It’s like a play. Even mum has a part. It’s her role to ground me and then forget about it tomorrow when she herself sobers up. I don’t know who they think is watching, but I’m not in the mood to act right now.

I head for the bench beside the small, man-made duck pond, but someone’s already there. I’m about to go around them when I recognise their turquoise jacket. ‘Butters?’

He jolts and looks up. His eyes are wide and teary. ‘Kenny? What’re you doing here?’

I sit beside him. ‘Avoiding my parents. You?’

He wipes his eyes on his sleeve. ‘My parents locked me out again.’

‘Again?’

‘Yeah.’

I frown. ‘Why would they lock you out?’

His ears turn red and he sticks out his bottom lip. ‘Because I’m a no-good troublemaker who stays out after curfew.’

‘Well that’s no reason to lock you outside at the beginning of Winter.’ It’s not snowing tonight but it will be tomorrow. You can feel it in the icy breezes. 

‘Yes it is!’ he snaps. ‘I just…’

I wrap my arm around him. He leans his cheek on my shoulder.

‘I just wish I knew how to stay out of trouble, so they wouldn’t have to worry all the time.’

I nod. Butters’ parents don’t worry about him, they worry about their reputations. It’s kind of an oxymoron considering what people would think of them if they knew they locked him out here on a school night. I don’t say that, though. He doesn’t need to hear anymore negativity.

Butters pulls back. He scrunches up his eyebrows and wiggles his nose like a mouse. Mice have cuter noses then rats. Pinker. ‘You smell like my grandma.’

‘Yeah, that’d be the whiskey. I had a weird night.’

‘Wanna talk about it?’

I think. ‘You know what? I do.’

He pulls his legs to his chest and turns sideways. Only his shoes are touching me now, the toes pushed into the side of my thigh. His breath is white and thick like someone tore open a bag of powdered sugar in his face. No matter the weather, he is the embodiment of sweetness. ‘Shoot.’

I smile. His brows are still furrowed and his lips pouty. He looks somewhere between a frustrated adult and a disappointed child. It’s just his face. ‘So cute,’ I say, then slap a hand over my mouth.

He grins. ‘Well, gee, thanks Ken. You’re not so bad lookin’ yourself, well, aside from the vomit on your shirt.’

I rub my forehead. ‘Yeah, thanks.’ Butters doesn’t think I’m Ugly. That’s good. Butter watched me throw up yesterday and knows I haven’t washed my parka since. That’s bad.

‘So, you gonna tell me why you been out so late gettin’ drunk?’

‘I’m not drunk.’ I remember cutting open the doll and the blood appearing on Pip’s face. If that was even Pip. ‘I’m not _that_ drunk. Weird stuff’s been happening. You know Michael, the Goth guy with the curly hair?’

‘Stan’s friend? Yeah.’

‘He was at Anya’s funeral.’

‘Poor guy.’

I shake my head. ‘Not poor guy. He’s weird. He invited me to meet his friends tonight.’

He tilts his head to the side like he’s trying to get a better look at me. ‘And you didn’t like them?’

‘They’re a fucking cult.’ I throw my hands up like I can’t believe my own words.

‘So, what, they worship Michael?’

I shake my head. ‘No, it’s got something to do with this old Egyptian God. Osiris, I think. They want to summon him to bring Anya back from the dead.’ Butters smacks me in the arm. It doesn’t hurt, but that isn’t the point. Butters glares at me. It isn’t intimidating, but that also isn’t the point. ‘The fuck, man?’

‘Now, listen here mister. That’s really rude what you said just now. Don’t—don’t be makin’ fun of other people’s religions like that. That’s mighty hurtful, especially when they come to you to help them grieve.’ He waves his finger at me like his scolding a small child. I feel small under his stern eyes.

‘Um, okay? But you’ve got to admit, necromancy is a bit far.’

His face softens. ‘Well, yeah, while I don’t agree with that part, I don’t think Michael would be going that far if he weren’t hurtin’, and I bet his friends are only helping out because they’re worried about him. It took a lot of trust for him to ask for your help, so you oughtta at least think about it, okay?’

Help. It wasn’t Michael who asked for that.

‘Okay.’ Butters is dead wrong, I know that, and I’m not going to considering going back to those creeps. But hearing Butters talk has reminded me why I went with Michael in the first place, and helps me feel a bit better about the night’s events. My brain doesn’t have so much cotton in it anymore.

‘Well, that’s good. You should be headin’ home now. It’s real late.’ His hair glows under the moonlight like another blond I know.

Another blonde I knew.

I stand up and hold out my hand. ‘Come on, I’m not letting you spend the night in the park.’

He looks at my hand and shakes his head. ‘I can’t impose on you like that, Ken. What’ll your parents think?’

I shrug. ‘Who cares? Being out alone is dangerous, and I don’t think I could live with myself if anything happened to you.’

He stands up and pulls me into a hug. His breath hits my neck and the heat runs down my spine and to areas I shouldn’t be thinking about. ‘You’re a good friend.’

‘So are you.’

When he steps back I run my hand down the side of his face. There’s no reason for it, but I do it anyway, because I want to and I know he’ll let me. Butters doesn’t ask about this stuff. He doesn’t need to. He knows I’ll never hurt him. His skin is electric on my fingers and it makes my knees weak. Cliché, I know, but that’s Butters for you. Sometimes he makes me feel like the protagonist of an Avon Books bodice ripper. You know, the sort of books I may or not have borrowed from Kyle’s mum’s collection.

When we get to my house everyone is in bed. I lead Butters into my room and shut the door behind us. When I turn around I nearly smack into Butters, who is backing into the door. His face is paper-white. ‘You okay?’ I ask.

‘Uh, Ken.’ He points to Cecelia. ‘I don’t want to scare you, but there’s rat on your bed.’

I laugh. ‘Butters, that’s just Cece, she lives in the closet with her family.’ I sidestep out from behind him and open the closet door. I point to the various nests made from my old shirts. Most of them have babies inside, hairless and the size of pencil sharpeners.

Butters looks at them. The colour returns to his face. He kneels down. ‘Well, hello little fellas. Are you Kenny’s friends?’ Edgar scurries over and stands in front of Butters on his hindlegs. I can’t tell if he’s protecting the babies or being an attention hog. Butters scratches his stomach and Edgar squeaks. ‘Naw, he’s so cute.’

My head spins with pride, but I don’t what of. A friend getting along with your rat collection isn’t something to be proud of. I sit on my bed and Cecelia climbs into my lap. ‘Sorry, hun. I didn’t bring you any snacks.’

Butters looks at us. He giggles. ‘She likes you.’

‘Yeah, they all do.’

He gives Edgar a final head-scratch. ‘You are just precious.’ Edgar leans forwards to follow his hand as it leaves. Butters sits beside me. Cecilia crawls to the edge of my lap and stares up at him. ‘So, how long have these little rascals lived here?’

‘Forever, I guess? The house has always been full of them. Mum used to set mousetraps, but I wouldn’t let her put any in my room. They realised this place was safe, so they moved in. They were really aggressive at first, tried to eat me alive some nights,’ I cringe, ‘but I didn’t want to kill them, so I had to put up with it. Then the first generation died and the next lot who’d grown up around me were kind of friendly. Then the next lot were even friendlier. Now, they act like we’re family.’

‘Three generations of rats? No wonder there’re so many.’

‘Four, actually. Rats only live a couple of years at best, and they aren’t exactly on the best diet. But since they can have like fifteen litters a year, and these are Brown Rats, which have like twenty babies per litter, it looks like a lot more.’

Butters eyes widen. ‘Jesus, Ken. How many rats you got in here?’

I shrug. ‘A couple hundred? But they’re small and it’s not like I’m in here often, so I’m not sure. Plus, sometimes multiple females will pool their litters to raise together, so it’s impossible to tell who has had how many each breeding cycle.’ I suspect most are Cecilia’s, though. I put her down and climb behind Butters to get under the covers. I lay down and tap the spot beside me.

‘You know a lot about rats.’

‘I haven’t got many hobbies.’

He stands up. ‘I don’t know about this, Kenny. Sleepin’ near the rats, I mean. Are you sure they don’t have no diseases or nothin’?’ He rubs his knuckles together.

‘I’m sure. I’ve been living with them for like six years, Butters, and none of this lot have ever left my room.’ 

He doesn’t move.

‘Come on, man. Loving me means loving my rats.’ I mean it as a joke, but the sleep makes my voice come out much too serious.

‘Well, okay.’ He gets under the blanket. ‘Night, Ken.’

‘Goodnight, Butters.’

He looks strange in my bed, but even stranger laying there in his clothes. He normally wears white pyjamas with pink, blue and green polka dots. He’s worn them at every sleepover, even when Cartman told him he looked like a gay clown.

He props himself up on his elbow. He has his serious face on again. His eyes dart around my face, searching. I’m about to ask him what’s wrong when he leans down and brushes his lips against mine.

Butters kissed me. By the time that information has caught up with my body he’s already lying down with his back to me. I hope this means something and he isn’t just being innocent Butters. I hope I make his cheeks and guts warm too.

The heat that comes off his body is enthralling, so I lean my forehead between his shoulder blades. I can feel every movement of his muscles and each thrum of his heartbeat. His back tenses then relaxes. The scurrying of the rats gets faster and Butters’ breathing gets slower, and the world feels right. 

Butters makes everything okay.

I wake up in the dark. Butters is on his back and snoring softly. My hand is on his stomach. I’m drowsy and comfortable, so I don’t know why I woke up. Then I see her at our feet. Her legs are crossed and her face void of emotion or light. Her eyes are dead. She doesn’t move. She’s like the world’s most persistent statue.

‘What is it now?’

She does nothing.

‘What do you want?’ I say louder.

Nothing.

‘Leave me alone!’

‘Ken?’ Butters turns his head towards me, his eyes still shut.

When I look back, Anya is gone. I lie down. ‘It’s nothing, Butters. Just a nightmare.’

‘Wanna talk about it?’

‘Nah, I’m good.’

He rolls over to face the closet. I wrap my arm around his chest and bury my face in the back of his neck.

Anya doesn’t come back tonight.

*

‘Pass the syrup, please, Mrs McCormick.’

‘Certainly, Butters.’ Mum hands Butters the maple syrup and he squirts some onto his waffle. ‘Kenny, your friend is so nice.’ That’s code for: why don’t you bring this friend around more often instead of those three assholes?

‘I know, mum.’ That’s code for: you’ll be seeing more of him.

‘The mousies were really loud last night,’ Karen says.

‘Kenny, when are you going to get rid of those damn things?’ mum snaps. She’s tired of having to clean rat droppings out of the vacuum. I think she needs to buy a better vacuum. Rat’s are a part of small-town life. You live in South Park and you live with rats. And if I happen to be the reason for South Park’s rat infestation, so what? They aren’t hurting anyone. ‘Kenny, you listening to be?’

I shrug.

Dad stumbles in from the bedroom, he’s in his faded blue work shirt but sans pants. I look down to make sure I kept my own pants on. Good. It’s the one thing me and dad have in common. McCormick men don’t wear pants if we don’t have to.

He’s early this morning. Normally I don’t see him until after school. He sits down and looks around the table. ‘Who’s this kid?’ Dad asks as mum hands him a plate with a stale pancake. I made sure Butters got the last waffle. 

‘That’s Butters.’

‘Hello, sir.’

‘You Stephen’s boy?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Dad nods approvingly. ‘Pass the syrup.’

*

Today we decide to walk to school instead of meeting the guys at the bus stop. Karen wants to ask Butters about cupcake recipes and I don’t want Cartman to ask us if we had sex. We didn’t, by the way. In case that wasn’t clear. 

‘Hi, Michael!’ Butter waves at the curly haired boy leaning against the side of the elementary school building, a cigarette in his hand. 

My legs fail and I nearly faceplant on the concrete.

‘Kenny?’ Karen grabs my arm. She doesn’t look scared, but her nails dig into my wrist in a way that calm people’s nails don’t. I pull myself out of her grip and push her behind me.

‘You can’t smoke here,’ I say.

‘I can do whatever I want, conformist.’ He raises an eyebrow. A challenge.

‘Kenny, can you walk me inside?’ Karen asks.

‘Of course.’

We pass Michael without breaking eye contact. Butters walks between us like a fence. I tell myself I’d kill him if Butters wasn’t here, but it isn’t true. I couldn’t hurt anyone in front of Karen. Not as Kenny, anyway. I regret retiring Mysterion. He always knew what to do.

We pass the youngest Goth in the hallway. He smirks at Karen and waves. She doesn’t wave back.

‘Do you want to skip?’ I ask.

‘No, I’ll be okay.’

‘I really think we should skip.’

Butters takes my hand. ‘She’ll be okay, buddy.’

‘You don’t know that.’

Butters’ sucks in his bottom lip. He’s thinking. He pulls out his phone and holds it out to Karen. ‘Here, you can borrow this. If you think something bad is going to happen, use it to call your brother.’

My chest aches, but it’s a nice ache. Even when he doesn’t understand what’s happening, Butters still goes out of his way to help us. 

She holds the phone with both hands like she’s afraid of dropping it. It’s a model up from mine, which makes sense since mine belonged to Butters until his last upgrade. He told his parents I bought it off him. It’s the only time I’ve ever seen him lie to them.

‘The passcode’s my birthday. You remember it, right?’ He smirks teasingly.

She nods. ‘Are you sure?’ She means about her borrowing the phone.

‘Of course, silly. I wouldn’t offer if I wasn’t.’

She looks at me. 

I take my hand out of Butters’ and put it on his shoulder. ‘It’s a good idea, kare-bear.’

‘Okay, thank you.’ She puts the phone in her pocket and gives us each a hug.

I squeeze her tight. I won’t let anyone hurt her.

**

It’s fifth period when she calls.

School was oddly boring. Cartman barely said a word all morning and his eye had gotten cloudy. Kyle told him to see a doctor and he didn’t argue. No gay joke or racial slur. He just nodded and said his head felt funny. He went home during lunch.

I hope he dies.

When my phone rings I don’t ask the history teacher before stepping out and she doesn’t try to stop me. People in South Park don’t value education, not even the teachers. I duck into the disabled restroom and answer the call.

‘Karen?’

‘He’s back.’ She’s definitely scared. ‘He told me to call you.’

The emaciated bastard. ‘Did he tell you what to say to me?’

There’s another voice in the distance. ‘Yeah, you need to go to Mr Garrison’s old classroom,’ she says. ‘There’s no one in there right now.’ Another pause. ‘Be quick.’

She hangs up.

I burst out of the restroom and past Nathan. He flips me off. The halls are mostly empty aside from Bebe, this semester’s hall monitor, who smiles as I run past. Bebe is Wendy’s best friend, and Wendy is Stan’s girlfriend, so I can do whatever I want. Wendy doesn’t approve of Bebe giving Stan’s friends special treatment, but Bebe doesn’t care what Wendy thinks. She’s jealous that Wendy got a boyfriend before her. Everyone can see it. Everyone uses it. She’s a terrible hall monitor.

I jump the fence to the playground beside the middle school. There’re cigarette buds under the yellow slide and a packet of condoms buried beside the swing set. Clyde put them there. He’s proud of his box of dirty condoms.

I climb into the front yard of the neighbouring house and cross the road to the elementary school.

Mr Garrison’s classroom was the third room on the first floor under the mezzanine. I always found this weird since both the sixth grade and kindergarten classrooms were on the second floor. The youngest and oldest kids had to climb the stairs while everyone else’s rooms were just metres from their lockers, which were all near the entrance.

The halls are thankfully empty. There’s duct tape on the walls above the lockers to my left. When I see it I get that tip-of-the-tongue feeling, like I’m about to remember something important. Something I’ve lost. I remember sound like cement crumbling, Cartman singing, then screams. A bird in the sky and the school and in the noise like an echo. It’s there but it’s not and I’m not sure if I’ve just been reminded of a bad dream.

Then it’s gone.

I look back at the duct tape and feel nothing. It’s just tape.

I wish this would stop happening.

I reach the room and aren’t surprised to see the cheap plastic blinds shut. I open the door. It’s dark inside but not completely. I’m reminded of group PowerPoint presentations and Nick Cage movies when Garrison was too hungover to teacher. It’s the same desks and chairs and wooden letters above the blackboard.

I approach my old desk in the middle of the room. It still has my name in the corner, but I can only see ‘nny’ and ‘mick’ because the rest is covered by a ragdoll. I pick it up. It’s just like the one I saw of Pip yesterday. This one is wearing an orange felt hoodie and has a brown stain between its eyes that looks like dried blood. 

A hand grabs my neck and my face slams onto the desk. I gasp. I drop the doll. My nose burns and fills with something. I hit the desk again. And again. The hand pulls me up and drops me to the ground. I land on my stomach. 

I taste iron. Hot blood runs down my face. It drips onto my hand as I push myself up onto my knees. Shiny and red on my hands and nails and the floorboards. My forehead hurts like some bastard punched the inside of skull and the backs of my eyes. I squint so my eyes don’t fall out of my head.

‘I… what?’ I try to lift my head and end up falling sideways. My hands slip in my own blood when I try to catch myself. I land on my side. The palms of my hands are red. I bet my hair is too. 

A black dress shoe comes down near my face. I know what’s coming and hold my breath. He kicks me in the stomach. I curl into myself. It’s no worse than the football. The football made me throw up. My chest constricts and I need to cough but I hold it in. The bile rises and I swallow. My head couldn’t take being sick and neither could my shabby, filthy clothes.

But there’s an upside to everything. At least he didn’t kick me in the balls.

He grabs my arm and pulls me to my feet. Once we’re at eye-level I spit blood. It catches in his hair and stains his shirt. Good. Michael glares at me and drags me into the halls where Pete’s waiting.

‘Help me carry him.’

Pete nods and grabs my other arm.

I pull away. ‘I can walk, jackass.’

Michael’s grip tightens on my bicep. ‘Then don’t fucking complain, conformist.’

‘Freak.’

He steps on my foot. 

Snow soaks through the holes in my shoes and drenches my socks. They squelch. I stumble and land on my knees but Michael doesn’t stop. He drags me until I manage to stand back up. I don’t complain.

Pete doesn’t look at me until we reach a purple brick house. When he does, it’s with pity. He’s about to say something, but Michael rings the doorbell and he looks away again.

Tweek opens the door. He sees me and his eyeballs almost pop out Loony Tune-style. ‘Oh Jesus! Get him inside before someone sees!’

Michael drops me on a brown leather couch. I shut my eyes. Maybe it’s the concussion but this is the comfiest couch I’ve ever sat on. It’s like I’m sitting on a cloud beside the angels. A brown cloud besides angel-Chef. Is that racist? It doesn’t matter. Everyone knows I’m white trash. Angel-Chef pats me on the back. His wings have little white buttons on them like the ones on the jackets of chefs on TV.

‘Hey! Open your eyes!’ Tweek shrieks.

I obey and see he’s holding the cloth doll in one hand and a lighter in the other. He pulls down the lever and the sparkwheel flickers. He tries again and it ignites. He holds it under the foot of the doll.

‘Arg!’ His head pulls down and slams his earlobe into his shoulder. ‘I’m magic! If I light this on fire you’ll die!’ He bites his lip and stares into my eyes. Even Angel-Chef wouldn’t know how to help this guy. ‘I’ll do it, man!’ The flame brushes the leg and it smokes.

My vision shakes. I put my hands on my cheeks to steady myself. It doesn’t work and I’m looking down a tunnel. Tweek and the doll get further and further away. His mouth moves but I can’t hear it.

I’m in a room. The walls are purple. I think I’m in a bed. A door opens and look towards it. I can’t make out who’s there. They’re calling a name that isn’t mine. 

‘Hey!’

It’s gone and I’m back in Tweek’s house. I don’t know what happened but it’s probably Anya’s fault. Everything is her fault. I don’t know why I ever wanted to help that cult demon child or her crazy family. I’m not even sure I regret letting her die at this point. At least she didn’t get a chance to drag Karen into any of this.

No, I did that myself. I involved Karen in this myself and I probably gave her as much of a choice in this as these psychos gave Anya. She was bleeding from the head when I found her. I’m sure Anya had to do plenty of horrible things too to please these people. Why else would they care so much about her?

I’m sure she didn’t mean for this to happen. She was a scared little girl just like Karen and now she wants to go home. Too bad it isn’t going to happen. The dead don’t come back. Karen’s safety is my top priority, and now I know they’re willing to use that to hurt me.

‘Fine,’ I say. ‘I’ll do whatever you want, just let me go back to school.’ Let me get back to Karen.

Tweek blinks and his eyes shrink to a normal size. He no longer looks like a crack addict. He drops the lighter and hugs the doll to his chest. ‘Oh, thank God. I thought I was going to have to kill you. Jesus, man, what would my parents think!’

I open my mouth and close it. I feel like I should say something but there’s not a whole lot I can say to that. I doubt I’d get a coherent response anyway.

Tweak’s relationship with reality seems strained at best.

Michael sits beside me with one leg folded over the other like a chick. ‘Give me your phone.’

I dig it out of my pocket.

He types in his number. ‘I’ll text you the next meeting time. Keep this to yourself.’ He drops it back in my lap.

I wish he’d told me that earlier. My brain conjures up images of Butters and I, twin corpses with ropes around our necks and holes in our heads. We’re in the dumpster behind City Wok. Fuck that. 

‘You can go now, dude.’

‘Thanks, Tweek.’

‘Howdoyouknowmyname?!’

Lord help me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Tweek (finally!).


	5. Brain Like a CD (Tweek)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tweek makes another doll. There is something not right with this doll. Damien isn't helpful, but Pip tries to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry about this. There's a reason Tweek has (will have) so few chapters. This... this gave me a headache. Still, I live for the experimental.

Lay down fabric. Two pieces, peach coloured. Peach like the fruit, like skin, like the pencil. Peach skin is soft and squishy and peels easier than an orange or real skin.

A roll of white thread. Two buttons, blue. Won’t work if they’re not blue. Orange felt. Yellow wool. Cotton stuffing. Cotton stuffing. Cotton. Cotton. Cotton. Cotton. _[Where did I put it?!]_

‘Arg!’ Pull hair and look for cotton stuffing. Not on the floor or the bed or under the bed or in the coffee mugs or on the windowsill or in the clothes drawers or in the craft drawer or in the lego box

door opens

or in the in the cereal bowl or

‘Here.’ Craig kneels in front of you. Craig has the cotton stuffing.

‘Nng, thanks!’

Lay down fabric. Two pieces, peach coloured. A roll of white thread. Two blue buttons. Orange felt. Yellow wool. Cotton stuffing. Ready to sew.

Pre-cut everything but the thread. Sew buttons onto the two pieces of fabric. His eyes. Sew two pieces of fabric together with cotton stuffing inside. His body. Sew wool to the head. His hair. Sew orange felt into a jacket and wrap it around him to keep him warm. Second Kenny doll is made.

‘Done.’ Show Craig second Kenny doll. He nods. He approves. Craig picks up hole-punch and makes a hole in his forearm. Final step for useful dolls:

Press doll to hole and wait for the bleeding to stop.

This is how you bring second Kenny doll to life.

Craig puts Band-Aid over the hole that isn’t bleeding anymore. Blue Band-Aid that matches Craig’s eyes and Kenny’s real eyes and Kenny’s button eyes on both the Kenny dolls you made.

‘What happened to the old one?’ Craig asks. He puts his arm around you and his breath is warm on your cheek.

‘Ah!’ Pull head down and up but don’t because you don’t control that part. ‘Damien took it.’

‘Ah.’ He makes noises like you sometimes.

Noises aren’t words but they mean words and you always mean to say something when you don’t because your mouth doesn’t open without you even if your eyes do and your head pulls and teeth crash. Words are a choice you can make but they take longer sometimes because the sounds that aren’t choices come out first. Craig understands and he never rushes you or Jimmy when you make too much sound without words.

Jimmy makes different sounds because his are words that are scratched like a CD in his brain that he can’t just replace because brains can’t be replaced and CDs are going obsolete so this metaphor gets better each time you think about it.

Look down and doll has an aura. Doll’s aura should be weak and soft like siphoned energy dripping down to us without his notice. Doll’s aura is bright and green and like a person’s. A whole person not one shared with a doll or two.

‘Craig! Do you see this?!’ Hold doll out for Craig.

Craig takes Kenny doll and turns it over and looks at the blood and looks at the seams and hands it back to you. ‘Looks fine. You did a good job.’

‘Urg, it’s not fine, Craig! Do you see its aura?’

‘I’m sure it’s fine.’ Craig can see the aura’s and hear the voices just like you and Damien which is how you know you’re damaged but not crazy. It’s different even if people other than you and Craig and Damien don’t know it. Damaged things aren’t always that way.

‘So, you noticed! And no, it’s not fine! We need to talk to someone! Kenny could be in danger! Or, or _we_ could be in danger because we made this thing and what if it’s not Kenny inside? What if it’s some _demon_ that possesses ritual dolls and it tries to influence us—’

Craig’s hand is over your mouth.

and make you do bad things like rob a bank and kill somebody? What if it tries to make you kill Kenny because he was the target soul and the ritual may still be working and trying to draw his soul in and the demon wouldn’t like that and want him gone and you’re right here in the room with the demon doll where it can reach you. Craig is in even more danger because it’s his blood you used so it’s him that’s attached to the doll’s spirit or body or you don’t know but it’s your fault. You were stupid and never asked why it needed blood and you’re selfishly glad you didn’t use your own blood because you don’t want to be controlled or killed by a demon but you don’t what to lose Craig either. Can you even say you love Craig if you aren’t willing to die for him? Oh God it’s going to kill Craig. Craig is strong though so maybe he can fight it he can definitely fight it better than you could because you’re not strong you just make dolls for Craig to bring to life because Craig’s special and

‘Honey, it’s fine.’ Craig doesn’t look possessed or dead or under demonic control. ‘If you’re that worried about it, we can just go over to Damien’s apartment and show him the aura.’

Take a deep breath. Hold Craig’s hands but not too tightly because his arms are always sore and scarred because he’s a good person who does good things for you. ‘Yeah, okay. Yeah let’s do that.’

Walk to CtPa Town Lofts. CtPa City Pa City Part City Wok that Kim owns but isn’t authentic Chinese food because Kim isn’t really Chinese because he’s white and has issues man that dad says are dangerous so you’re not supposed to be here because Kim might kidnap you and sell you into slavery but he’s never hurt you before and Craig’s here he’ll protect you and Kim likes Kenny because CtPa was his idea so he’d never hurt someone trying to help Kenny but he doesn’t know you know Kenny and he’d never know if you didn’t tell him but it’s dangerous to talk to him and

‘Tweek, you okay?’

‘Gah! Fine Craig!’

Enter the white foyer with white couches and walls. Follow Craig into the elevator. Look into the mirrors. Don’t look for too long or else the monsters will appear. The monsters aren’t real they’re just your brain misfiring and not recognising your own face or recognising faces that aren’t there. Craig told you that and Craig is always right about science stuff, even if that doesn’t feel right.

If your brain can stop recognising your own face, what if it stops recognising others? What if you don’t recognise Craig one day and think he’s an intruder or a murderer or that he murdered the real Craig and try to hurt him? This is also a real thing and can be Prosopagnosia or Capgras delusion. It’s a science thing you found yourself. You don’t always need Craig to tell you things even though it feels like it. Prosopagnosia is when you can’t process faces at all and wouldn’t be so bad because even if you didn’t know what Craig looked like you’d still know his voice and touch and smell and that’s enough. You would love him even if he didn’t have a face. Capgras delusion is worse because you stop feeling things when you look at people and your brain tells you it’s because they’ve been replaced by strangers or aliens oh god aliens or something else just as scary. No one could ever replace Craig without you knowing but how can you know a real imposter from a delusion when not knowing is the whole point of being delusional?

Head down. Shut eyes. Deep breath. Squeeze Craig’s hand. It’s still part of Craig, even in a room of mirrors. He’ll still be Craig, even if you stop being you. Not stop being you as in replaced by a clone or an alien or a stranger, but as in you become so defective that you don’t know who Craig is anymore and do things that you know you wouldn’t do be definitely would if you lost yourself in your mind but not body and people don’t know the difference between those two parts of self but you know because one day you won’t be you because it’s getting worse each day and the door is open now but you can’t move because the body mind string has snapped and Craig please tie it back together.

‘We’re here.’ He pulls your hand _[please pull my hand]_ and you’re walking again.

‘Grr, okay!’

It’s getting worse each day but Craig can fix it like he fixes everything because he is everything. He will be everything even when you’re nothing and _[I hope]_ even when you forget everything else you’ll still remember him. You couldn’t survive otherwise.

Damien is on the couch, there’s a couch here sometimes, and Pip is on the floor by the window. Damien looks at us and smiles but Pip doesn’t move because he can’t and that’s your fault your fault _[my fault]_ even if he tells you it isn’t.

‘I didn’t know we were having guests. Welcome.’ He waves then gestures to the couch across from him that has never been here before and makes it look like he was actually expecting you. He doesn’t know you know he can see the future because you don’t know if that’s what’s really happening but you’re sure he knows things he shouldn’t and lies about it.

Craig leads you to the couch and sits. He puts his arm around your shoulders to show Damien that he can’t hurt you and show you that he won’t let you be hurt. You don’t need to be protected by Craig, at least not physically since you have stronger arms, but it’s nice that he wants to. You don’t want to fight but at least this way, if something does happen, you won’t be fighting alone. Do nothing alone, even if you can.

‘Doll!’ You yell because the other words didn’t come out and there’s no use starting over when the doll was the important part. ‘Its weird, man!’

‘He means its aura.’ Craig smirks like he’s laughing at you. Nudge him in the ribs too hard but it’s okay because he doesn’t say anything so you know he’s not mad or dying. Pat his thigh to apologise and let him ruffle your hair. It’s nice.

‘What kind of aura?’ Damien frowns.

Hand over doll. He turns it over and looks at the face and the blood and the seams like Craig did and hands it back. He’s not frowning anymore.

‘It’s nothing to worry about.’

Craig squeezes your shoulder. ‘See, honey?’

Aura feels too strong so you don’t believe him but you can’t argue with Damien because Damien is Damien and Damien in charge so he might kick you out of the group

you don’t want to be in the group anyway but you need to be for Craig and the dolls and because you owe Pip too much for thing he doesn’t blame you for. You need to help them and keep them out of danger but even if you can’t protect anyone you need to know about the bad stuff happening so at least it won’t come as a surprise.

Do not let Damien take away your dolls or take away Craig so you can’t bring new dolls to life anymore or kill you himself. He’s never killed anyone that you know of but he hurts people so badly it’s like their dead and that’s scary enough.

‘Thanks!’ Head twitches violently and your arm jerks out. ‘I wanna talk to Pip!’

Damien nods and points to the long window.

Sit next to Pip beside the long window. Pull out Pip doll, which you put in a pocket separate from Kenny doll, and check its aura. Faint yellow, like it’s always been.

‘What’s wrong, old chap? You don’t look well,’ Pip doll says, but it’s not actually Pip doll but the real Pip speaks to you through the doll because that’s all he’s able to do now without Damien’s permission.

‘Gah! Something’s wrong with Kenny, man! I can feel it, but no one believes me!’

‘Yes, I know what you mean. I could see it when he was here. Poor fellow, he has no idea what’s going on and I have no way to warn him.’

‘I can warn him!’

Pip doll’s aura grows for a second, like a flashlight in your eye

like a live person

then it’s back to normal. ‘No, don’t bother. It really isn’t worth the trouble it could cause you, and I doubt it would make a difference anyway. You would only be hurting yourself.’

He means you would end up like him, which only happened because he tried to help you and you didn’t listen because you didn’t know any better and no matter what anyone says you never can know better until everything’s already gone to shit and your friend is lying in the corner with half his body gone. He learnt the hard way what happens when you try to be brave and doesn’t want you to have to as well.

‘Is the issue showing in his doll?’ Pip asks.

‘Yeah! It’s glowing like a real person and everything.’

‘I see. If you like, I can give you instructions on how to make Kenny—the real Kenny—something to protect him. I can’t guarantee how much good it will do, but it’ll at least give him a chance.’

‘Nnn—a chance for what?’

‘Nothing important, I'm sure. Don't dwell on it.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Back to Kenny.


	6. Not Even Clyde is Getting Laid (Kenny)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A ritual happens and Kenny starts spiralling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter in ACT 1! WHOOP! 
> 
> ACT 2 will be a lot more balanced POV-wise.
> 
> The three acts have been split up by the characters who most influence the events. Act 1 - Anya (1-6), Act 2 - Kenny (7-13), Act 3 - Tweek (14-20). So, Anya matters a lot less in the coming chapters. Pete doesn't get his own act because his story-line is pretty separate until near the end, but he does get more page-time in the coming chapters.

We’re a couple miles from Stark’s Pond. The forest smells like sulphur, pinewood and sexual repression. Michael texted me this afternoon telling me to meet them here with the crown and something with Anya’s blood on it. It’s fucked up that I now consider that a normal conversation. This week everything’s either been about Cartman’s pink-eye or the unforgettable night I spent with a dead girl.

I brought my old blanket. It’s in my backpack. My backpack is full of things I don’t want to think about.

It’s Saturday night and no one but us is out here. People in South Park don’t go out the way people do in other towns. Normal towns. The only places anyone ever goes are City Wok and Skeeter’s bar. People only go into the forest for Stark’s Pond and people only go to Stark’s Pond to get laid. No one is getting laid tonight.

Michael made a shrine to Anya on a tree stump. It has a photo of her, two lit white candles, and a cloth doll. It’d be a pathetic way to memorialise her but I don’t think that’s the point.

‘Put the blanket over the stump,’ Michael says.

I put my bag down a few feet away and pull out the blanket. It still smells like her. I hold my breath as I unfold it. ‘Over the candles?’

He nods. Henrietta, Pete and Firkle are standing in a line beside him. Damien, Craig and Tweek are behind me. Pip sits under a tree to my left. Together, they make a U-shape around me.

I throw the blanket over the stump and the candles don’t go out. Two orange lights flicker under the thin fabric and illuminate the blood stains like red roses. Or like some other poetic shit. People from South Park aren’t poetic or creative or even that smart, but I’m doing my best to paint a picture. This picture is of glowing red not-quite-circles that look too pretty for what they are.

‘Good,’ Damien says, ‘now, we’re going to need you to put the crown on.’

I spin to face him and glare. ‘No fucking way.’

‘I understand this is hard for you, but this is for Anya’s sake.’ He oozes fake concern and it’s disgusting.

The little shit didn’t even know Anya, I can see it in his face. In the mock concern. No one here besides me and Michael were at her funeral. I look at Michael and he nods, as if telling me to shut up and do as I’m told. I feel bad for him. Damien doesn’t care about Michael’s dead cousin. He’s getting something out of giving these crazy assholes false hope, but I have no idea what it is. Maybe he’s looking for a way to fix Pip? Nah, he doesn’t seem all that worried about Pip, either. 

‘I’m not wearing a fucking crown,’ I say. It’s hard enough just to look it. I hate remembering the feel of their hands on me and the cold, artificial kiss of an embalmed corpse. Kissing a taxidermist’s doll.

‘I’m afraid it’s necessary.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘Kenneth—’

‘ _Kenny_.’

‘ _Kenny_ , this is imperative for our ritual to work. You’ve come this far.’

‘Not because I wanted to.’

‘But you’re here.’ His eyes narrow. I’ve made a crack in his serene mask. The air thickens in a way that isn’t natural. I don’t know what he’ll do if I keep fighting, but I know it won’t be worth it.

I sigh. ‘Fine.’

I close my eyes so I don’t have to look at the stupid crown as I put it on. The metal rim sticks to my sweaty fingers, reminding me how cold it is. The Goths all have scarves on. Last time I saw those I was a princess, Cartman was a wizard king, and no one I cared about was dead.

‘Good.’

I open my eyes and everyone is standing beside me in a circle. Even Pip. He’s standing across from me between Damien and Tweek and I have no idea how he got there. I’ve never seen him move and I can’t imagine him doing so on his own.

Pip’s short, even shorter than Butters. Everything from his height to his clothes to the look (or lack of) in his eye makes him small. Pip lifts his arm, moving in slow motion, and holds up his palm. His eye widens like he’s as surprised as I am by the action. The eye stays blank but now I’m sure he’s still in there. Some part of him. Damien pulls out a box-cutter and slices Pip’s hand. He doesn’t flinch. I count the seconds as the dark blood collects in the cut and drops onto the blanket like burgundy molasses. It’s congealed but he isn’t decomposing. I wonder how his heart is able to pump that. If I asked, they’d say it’s magic. 

Tweek gasps. He grips Craig’s wrist and Craig cringes but doesn’t pull away. There’s red running down his hand where Tweek’s opened his wounds. A horrible contrast to Pip’s not-quite-blood. What the fuck is wrong with these people?

Pip leans over the blanket and uses his index finger to push his own syrupy blood around into a shape. A sigil. His hair covers the detailed side of his face but I can hear his sharper-than-before breathing. He’s aware. Somewhere in that body is a consciousness that knows what is happening right now and feels strongly about it. I hope he’s happy. I don’t want to be here but I hope Pip is getting some joy out of his own warped and damaged existence. I look at my feet and try not to listen. Being near him hurts.

When he’s finished, he steps back and kneels down beside Damien’s feet. He’s done all he’s allowed to. ‘Good work, Pip.’ Damien’s voice makes me sick. I want to tell him that he can’t treat another human like that, but obviously he can.

If Butters were here he’d tell me it’s not my life and to stop being judgemental. He’d ask them if they were happy then take whatever Damien said as fact. He’d regurgitate whatever his parents said to stop him from going to teachers or the police or even his friends about their bullshit. He’d see the good in Damien, like I’m sure Pip did, even if it isn’t there.

I don’t know how I could explain all of this to him. I don’t want to. Michael told me to keep this to myself and, once again, I’m going to have to listen to him.

‘Michael, would you do the honours?’

Michael nods and says something in Russian. It sounds like a chant or a spell. Why would the spells for an Egyptian cult be in Russian? I don’t know. Nothing makes sense here and I don’t know if it’s because these people are crazy or if it’s because this is South Park. When he’s done, he lights a match and throws it on the blanket. Pip’s blood catches like gasoline and the whole stump goes up.

There’s cheering and someone pats me on the back. Maybe Craig. I don’t know because I can’t see anything besides the fire.

The flames get taller and the darker parts mould into a human shape. It stands up, every limb distinguished and solid. A girl. It’s hair flows in twirling red. It drops to its knees. It puts its hands up. It’s arms grow longer until it’s hands disappear into the smoke. It writhes in silent, unadulterated agony.

The fire goes out as if hit with a bucket of ice water.

There’s silence.

After a moment, Michael speaks. ‘This is your fault.’

I think he’s talking to me, but when I look over to argue he’s clearly looking past me to Tweek.

‘The hell, man?! I did everything I was supposed to!’ Tweek snaps.

‘Yeah, Tweek did nothing wrong,’ Craig says. He puts his hand on Tweek’s stomach and pushes him behind him.

Michael rolls his eyes. ‘This is just like what happened with Philip. You ruined another ritual you fucking poser.’ Michael storms off. His friends follow.

‘ _Ididn’tburnthedollthattimeIswear!_ ’’ Tweek screams. He tries to run after them but Craig wraps his arms around his waist and holds him to his chest. He kicks out and howls. There are tears in his eyes.

‘That was a disappointment.’ Damien looks pensive.

‘You didn’t seriously expect that to work, did you?’ I ask.

‘The fuck?!’ Tweek snaps.

Craig looks unimpressed but something in his face says he agrees with me. Or maybe that’s just how his face looks.

‘Yes, I did.’ Damien looks me in the eye. ‘For a moment you believed it too, didn’t you?’

I glance back at the stump. I did. When I saw the figure come to life then die in front of me I believed something big was about to happen. I don’t say that. Instead I ask: ‘Why did we need the blanket?’

‘It was something of hers to draw the spirit in.’

My heart jumps.

‘But it wasn’t hers.’

‘The blood was.’

I nod.

I think I know what to do, but they don’t need to know that yet. I’m not going to spend more time around these freaks than I have to.

They told me I can bring Anya back and I’m going to. The girl in the fire won’t suffer again.

*

I knock on the door to Cartman’s new house. Clyde answers.

‘Hey man, your bro up?’

He groans steps back to let me in. ‘Don’t call him that.’

‘No date tonight?’ Clyde is the only person I like making small talk with. It’s a good way to find out things about my classmates that I might need to know later.

He shakes his head. ‘Nah, it’s Red’s dad’s birthday so they went out as a family.’

Clyde gave up on Bebe in sixth grade and now he’s dating Red. I don’t know much about her except that she’s friends with Wendy and doesn’t like being called a slut. Cartman learnt that the hard way. Learning something the hard way requires a trip to either the ER or the morgue. Unfortunately, Cartman is only ever sent to the ER.

‘That sucks, man,’ I say.

‘Yeah.’ 

‘How’re your friends?’

He shrugs. ‘Craig and his boyfriend are on a date. Lucky bastard.’

Normally I’d make a gay joke, but I’m too caught up on the fact that Craig considers _that_ a date. I can’t believe I ever thought that guy was normal.

I nod and head upstairs to Cartman’s room.

He opens the door before I knock. ‘What do you want, shithead?’

‘Good to see you too, fuckface.’ I push past him and flop backwards onto his queen-sized bed.

‘Get off, I don’t want your fleas.’ He shoves my legs, but it’s meant as a joke. He’s a big guy. If he wanted me off the bed I’d be off by now.

‘And I don’t want your pink-eye.’

‘Aye! My mum took me to the doctors, it’s not pink-eye.’ He lays next to me. Cartman’s a shitty person who makes me passively homicidal, but, contrary to what Kyle says, he’s not a shitty friend. If something happened to me he would care. He might not grieve, but he would care. He’d probably kill someone over it if he thought he could get away with it, or at the very least beat them up. The thought of Cartman picking a fight with Michael makes me smile. He might even win.

‘Well? What is it then?’ I’m referring to his eye.

He shrugs. ‘I don’t fucking know.’

‘Lovely.’

He grabs his phone off the nightstand and holds it above his face. He’s playing Homescape. ‘So, what do you want?’

‘Want to go grave robbing?’

He looks at me and smirks. ‘Fuck yeah. Got anyone in mind?’

‘Anya Petrov, Karen’s dead friend.’ My throat still tightens when I say her name.

‘What’d the poor bitch ever do to you?’

I frown. This is about love not hate. ‘No questions,’ I say, because it’s not worth explaining that I grave-rob out of love. Also, I only picked Cartman because I figured he wouldn’t ask. 

‘Whatever.’ 

He’s a good friend.

**

I don’t know what I expected when we opened her coffin, but this smell wasn’t it. Like rotten meat dipped in spoiled milk then left out in the sun for weeks. I pull myself out of the hole and throw up beside her headstone. Sorry Anya.

‘Fucking pussy,’ Cartman says. He looks up at me with raised eyebrows. He’s sitting on the edge of her coffin with the same nonchalance as in his bedroom.

‘Isn’t embalming supposed to help with the rot?’

‘You really believe that bullshit? Funeral homes only tell you that so you’ll spend more money. They’re a business.’

‘But it does work, it was invented to keep bodies nice while they were brought home during the war.’ Mr Garrison taught us that in third grade during one his morbid history lessons. For some reason it stuck with me. I was really into death back then. I remember drinking the formaldehyde in the science room on a dare, but that couldn’t have actually happened otherwise I’d be dead. We probably misread the label. That or the school showed some common sense for once and didn’t leave actual embalming fluid were eight-year-olds could reach it.

‘How old’s the body?’

I frown.

‘Exactly. That shit was only meant to make her look good for the funeral, as if anyone there actually wanted to look at her corpse.’

‘Fair enough.’

‘So, what do you want? Her jewellery? The shoes? That gay-ass crown?’

I grimace. ‘The whole body.’

‘Hell yeah. Haven’t gone this far since Kyle’s grandma. Get back down here and help me lift her.’

It turns out the embalming wasn’t a total waste—she looks a lot better than she smells. I sit beside her on the grass while Cartman re-buries the empty coffin. Her skin is sunken and her eyes have melted. There’s green fluid staining her legs and dress. But that’s all. She’s otherwise in one, recognisable piece. Now that I know how she’s faired I can make my game plan.

Cartman leans against Anya’s headstone with the shovel still in his hand. Sweat sticks his hair to his forehead.

‘Is it true rats eat their friends when they die?’ He smirks.

‘Not domesticated ones.’

‘All those chemicals would make her taste like shit anyway.’

I frown. ‘All those chemicals would make her poisonous.’

‘You never die.’

We’re having a conversation about cannibalising the nine-year-old girl we just dug up. The most fucked up part is that I don’t even care. Now that I’m staring at a corpse that actually looks like a corpse in the face, I’m numb to all the other bullshit. She doesn’t look porcelain or taxidermized anymore.

‘Let’s get her back to your house,’ he says.

I grab Anya’s arms and he grabs her feet.

‘The bitch better not fall apart.’

I was thinking the same thing.

We reach my house and lay her behind a bush. Cartman stands guard while I pick the lock, or what passes for a lock, on my bedroom window. The rats squeak at the sound. I shush them. I’m aware of two potential problems: firstly, keeping my parents from asking about the smell; secondly, and much more concerning, keeping the rats from eating her. Not only would that ruin my plan, but also kill my rats. I can’t have that.

‘Fuck.’

‘What now?’ Cartman snaps.

‘The rats.’

‘Yeah?’

‘They’ll eat her.’

Rats have up to a thousand genes dedicated to detecting odours. It makes up a full 1% of their DNA. They could probably smell Anya before we even crossed the tracks. 

He rolls his eyes. ‘Well, shit! Cover her up or something, I don’t know!’

He’s losing patience with me. I can’t blame him. He helped me carry 60 pounds of deadweight across town without even knowing why. I’ll ask Butters to help me bake him something nice as a thank you. If I survive this, that’ll be the least I can do.

‘Okay, I can do that. Help me get her onto the bed.’

‘Your bed? Gross!’ He complains but still picks her up bridal-style and carries her through the window. When he lays her down, we notice that corpse fluid has soaked into the front of his hoodie. I expect him to be mad, but he doesn’t mention it.

‘Thanks, man. I really appreciate it.’

‘It’s cool, just give me some warning next time.’ He squeezes my shoulder before leaving the same way he came.

‘Don’t worry, Anya. I’m taking care of everything. You’ll be back to chasing Karen around in no time.’ I brush the hair from her face.

I check the time on my phone. 1:30AM. I call Michael.

 _‘What?’_ He sounds half-asleep but I doubt that’s the case. Him and his friends don’t have bags the size of Australia under their eyes because they spend their nights sleeping. 

‘Henrietta with you?’ I don’t waste time on small talk because I don’t like making small talk with people who force me to molest corpses. Granted, I’ve done much worse now, but it’s the principle. Besides, Anya wants to be here. I can sense it.

 _‘…Why?’_ He questions in a tone that is as good as a yes.

‘Put her on.’ 

There’s a crackle as the phone is passed to someone.

_‘What do you want?’_

‘Tights.’

_‘Tights?’_

‘Tights, pantyhose, stockings, whatever you call them. It’s important.’

‘So you came to me?’ She sounds understandably sceptical. I don’t think we’ve ever spoken before.

‘Yes.’

Henrietta sighs. ‘Fine, weirdo. Where are you?’

She’s not as argumentative as Michael. I’m glad. I give her my address and hang up. Next, I call Butters.

 _‘Heya Ken! How’d everything go?’_ He’s whispering, so I assume that means he’s meant to be in bed. He’s risking being grounded, or worse, just to talk to me. I’m touched.

I smile and sit on the floor, back against the closet. I stretch out my legs. Cecilia climbs into my lap and runs down to my ankle to chew on my exposed toe. ‘Good, it went good. Everything’s going to be okay now.’ I’m not lying. I think I know how to make everything okay.

_‘Well, what’d you do?’_

‘Don’t worry about that.’ I pat my thigh. Cecilia scurries up for a head-scratch. ‘I’ll tell you some other time.’

_‘Well, alright. Say, are you free tomorrow?’_

I look at Anya, frozen stiff with her hands clasped together on her stomach. ‘I should be free.’

_‘Want to hang out?’_

‘Of course. I always want to hang out.’

He giggles. _‘You’re so sweet.’_

My phone buzzes. ‘I’ve got to go, see you tomorrow?’

‘Sure thing, see you Ken.’

I hang up. As I thought, the text is from Henrietta. She’s outside.

I collect three sets of black stockings from her. I put one set on Anya’s legs and the on her arms. They make her hands look like mittens. I put a leg from the third set over her head. Her skin’s sticky and peels like wax, but I manage everything with minimal damage. She’s safe enough now from the rats. I spray her with floral disinfectant spray from the bathroom.

This should be good enough. 

‘Anya?’ I say.

‘Kenny?’

I sigh. ‘Hey.’

‘Where am I?’ Her lips don’t move. They’re still sewn shut. But the voice is hers and it’s definitely coming from her.

‘You’re in my room.’

‘Oh. Is it morning?’

‘No, actually it’s time for bed.’

‘I don’t feel good. I can’t move.’ She doesn’t sound worried.

I smile. ‘Maybe you’ll feel better in the morning.’

‘Sleep with me?’

‘Of course.’

I lie down beside her and her unmoving lips stretch into a smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter - Tweek!


	7. Problems Are (Tweek)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time spent with Craig and his friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry. This is an exposition-heavy mess. It's short, yet I still couldn't figure out how to fix it. I wasn't even sure if I should post this chapter or just skip it entirely. It's bad.

Craig’s friends eat store-brand corn chips with salsa and drink orange soda while they play Super Mario. They’re Craig’s friends not yours because you didn’t go to school with them until you were twelve and they wouldn’t even talk to you if it weren’t for Craig because even now you have nothing to talk about and they don’t even look you in the eye unless you say something wrong and they’re doing it to make you uncomfortable to shut you up. Don’t care about girls or cars or football or why Clyde never puts the toilet seat down.

Clyde’s complaining about someone you don’t know but Craig does and you think you remember Craig saying this someone was Clyde’s brother but he isn’t and you don’t understand. The words float around your ears and brush your skin with prickles and itch but they don’t go in and you don’t hear them. Words are just sounds and when you can’t understand them because you missed something your so stupid the sounds turn against you and you deserve it because Clyde smiles and rolls his eyes and how could you think his words would ever want to hurt you? Stupid stupid

breath.

Clyde and Token are playing with Craig’s Xbox but Craig isn’t playing because he has both his arms around you. He never plays games anymore, he only cuts up fabric and his arms and walks you to Damien’s apartment where no one plays video games because they have more important stuff to do like killing or resurrecting people depending on the day. It’s your fault he doesn’t play games. That’s right. It’s also your fault he met Damien and it’s your fault Pip is hurt and it’s your fault the ritual didn’t work and Anya’s still dead and you wasted Kenny’s time

‘Tweek?’ It’s Clyde again, but it’s only one word, and it’s a word you know. He’s looking oh God he’s looking right at your face and so is Token, right in your eye like you’ve done something wrong again and of course you have you always screw up something and embarrass Craig he could do so much better ‘dude?’ Clyde’s getting impatient! You’re making him mad you useless idiot say something he’s Craig’s best friend! Wait when did they pause their game? How’d you not hear it? It’s so loud and high and scary but it drowns out your thoughts and Craig know that, that’s the whole reason you’re here. Craig invited you to distract you because he’s always trying to help and you’re stuck inside your head again like you don’t even care!

‘Yeah?’ Pull hands out of hair. When did you grab your hair?

‘You okay?’ Token this time. ‘You’re shaking a lot.’

‘Yeah, like, more than usual.’ Clyde looks back at the screen and that’s good because it means he isn’t too worried so he won’t tie you to a chair and interrogate you under a fluorescent desk lamp like detectives do on TV. Not that Craig would let him do that even if you were kids just playing detective because he knows that bright lights make you anxious or more anxious then usual you never aren’t anxious and he wouldn’t want you to tell them about Osiris anyway because then Damien might get angry and you don’t want to make Damien angry again even if it’s not your fault because it still is if it’s caused by your problems

Problems are what your parents call it when you can’t use tea-cups with saucers because the clink of two pieces of porcelain makes your head hurt like the walls of your skull and your brain are rubbing together or how you have to wear mittens when touching magazines because the plastic paper burns your finger-tips like fire or how you have to have subtitles on the TV no matter how loud it is or the loungeroom noise makes everything sound like gibberish.

but none of that will happen because Clyde is looking at the TV not being a fake detective with an interrogation desk lamp. Or do they only do that in parodies of detective shows? _[I’ve never seen them do that on real cop shows, what are they parodying?]._

‘He’s fine,’ Craig says because he can tell you’ve already forgotten the question. Look up at Craig and see his blank face. The friend face. It’s the one he gives his friends so they think nothing is going on and don’t worry about him. You don’t have a friend face but it’s okay because they aren’t your friends so you don’t need to give them special looks and they don’t care enough to pester you. They would pester Craig if he were shaking but so would everyone because Craig doesn’t shake. He doesn’t get anxious because he’s too strong for that and if he did he wouldn’t tell anyone because he won’t let them worry about him because he doesn’t want to burden anyone the way you do. But you’d know. You know Craig too well. All his faces and all his moods and all his touches, you’d know if he was upset about something. It’s your only real skill.

‘Hey Tweek?’ Token again. He’s not looking this time. He’s not mad at you or trying to make you more anxious or even really caring about what you have to say about what he says.

‘Ngh, yeah?’

‘Craig told me you’re good at sewing, would you be able to help me make Nicole a teddy bear? It’s her birthday soon.’

‘Gah! No more dolls! No no no!’ You’re good at making dolls too but that’s a bad skill that only makes bad things happen to good people for bad people. Bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad

‘It’s cool, don’t worry about it. I just thought it was worth asking.’

dolls don’t do what you want them too anymore and maybe they never did and it was just Damien tricking you so you wouldn’t leave back when you could leave before everything became like this. You can’t leave now. Stuck stuck stuck

Craig squeezes your shoulder. He’s worried. Stop worrying him. You want to but you can’t because you don’t know how he can stay so calm in the first place doesn’t he care about what’s happening? Doesn’t he know what could happen? you told him about Pip a hundred times but he says you ramble and sometimes he doesn’t listen when you ramble so maybe he doesn’t know but you don’t know how to explain it to him aside from the way you already have so if he hasn’t listened by now he never will! He’ll never listen and never know why things are so dangerous and it’ll be has fault and yours because when bad things happen it’s always your fault somehow!

Don’t get angry at Craig for being calm just because you can’t. You’ve never been calm and things are always getting worse so you shouldn’t expect that to change now. Craig is your rock and wanting your rock to break just because you are is selfish and sociopathic and you don’t deserve him if you think like that you should be alone. You don’t deserve Craig if you want him to feel bad because you’ll just tear him down even if you don’t want to you destroyed Pip’s life

 _Pip went to your school before the accident. He used to sit with you and Craig at lunch because you never made fun of him for being gay or British and no one made fun you either because Craig wouldn’t let them. You didn’t understand why people found Craig scary but they did and it kept you safe. Sometimes he’d talk about Damien but he always stopped himself after a couple sentences. You thought maybe he was his crush or something but you didn’t know for sure._ [I wish I still didn’t know]. _He remembered Craig from elementary school and said things about kids you didn’t know but it made Craig’s face turn red and his hands squeeze so tight they hurt you. It was a good hurt through because it meant they meant something and you wanted to know about everything that meant something to Craig._

_Met Craig at the coffee shop, he came in every day after school for a whole semester in fifth grade then asked to be friends. He made his parents send him to the same middle school as you. He asked you out last year and when you told Pip about it because he was the only one besides Craig you could tell anything to he said he was happy for you and invited you over to his house. You shouldn’t have gone. Craig told you not to. Craig said he thought he knew who Damien was but he wasn’t sure and could you please just wait a little bit and trust him please trust him but you didn’t._

_Damien told you about Osiris when Craig wasn’t there to stop you from being stupid. Don’t know how to read faces very well but you saw something bad scared wrong in Pip’s and you still agreed to join because you are stupid always even after Craig tried to guide you for so long to be more logical and reasonable and less stupid you. You brought Craig into that broken world and learned how to make dolls that talk but might not and you didn’t question if it was okay until Pip stopped you in the hallway and told you to run away. He told you to leave town and he wasn’t overreacting because the next day he was dead._

_A train hit him even though he doesn’t live near the trains station and his body didn’t look like it’d been hit by a train but either way he was dead. Damien smiled when he told you. You don’t know how to read faces very well but you know what a smile means. Then you made the doll that caught fire and it’s your fault he’s a half-person living doll._

and he never did anything to you so of course you’ll hurt Craig you don’t deserve him and he’ll figure that out one day but he might not figure it out until after you’ve made him suffer because you’re awful and you hurt everyone you love and **_[I’m so_** **_selfish leading him on like this]_**

‘Tweek?’

‘ _Gah!_ ’’ Stop worrying Craig!

‘Honey, do you want to go into the other room?’ He whispers in your ear or as close to it as he can get with your messy hair. Feel his breath on your cheek. It’s warm. 

‘I’mokay _._ ’

‘No, you’re not.’

‘I’m okay, Craig,’ say it firmly. He’s unsure but he lets it go because he trusts you. _[Even now, he still trusts me.]_

Finger the beads in your pocket.

Not time yet. Soon. Ready soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Kenny


	8. Statistical Certainties (Kenny)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kenny and Butters become closer and something is really wrong with Cartman.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't listen to Lorde.

Chapter 8: Statistical Certainties (Kenny)

It’s Monday, lunchtime.

I’m sitting at our usual table with the guys. The guys are: Butters, Stan, Kyle, Cartman, Scott, Jimmy, Token and Clyde. Stan and Kyle are discussing a basketball game they saw Friday night. Jimmy is telling a joke. Scott forgot his packed lunch and is drinking orange soda. Scott, the diabetic, is having soda for lunch.

Rats have taste-aversion. They avoid all food that has previously made them sick, even if it was only once. Scott Malkinson does not have taste aversion and makes himself sick a lot.

Butters puts his arm around my waist and squeezes. I ruffle his hair. Clyde raises an eyebrow and looks at Cartman, who shrugs.

‘What’re you doing?’ Cartman asks.

I open my mouth but Butters beats me to the punch.

‘Well, we’re dating now,’ he announces.

Everyone gapes at him. I gape at him. He takes my hand and grins up at me like he isn’t the centre of attention.

‘Alrighty then,’ Cartman says. He gives me an _I want the details later_ look. I raise my eyebrows, trying to communicate that I know as much about this as he does.

‘You’re gay?’ Clyde asks.

‘Yeah.’

‘Oh.’ I don’t try to decipher this.

‘Well, congratulations you two. I hope your happy together.’ Stan’s tone says he’s anything but. I don’t blame him. Wendy hates Butters, and as much as Stan doesn’t agree, I know he doesn’t want to see more of Butters than he has to. Wendy will ream him for this. Wendy seems to think every bad relationship is somehow Stan’s fault. I get wanting to stop toxic romances, but no one gets as invested in other people’s lives as she does. I hope Stan keeps his mouth shut, because it’s probably in both our best interests.

He won’t, though. Stan’s not that smart.

‘Hey, Buttercup, can we talk in the hallway?’ I ask.

‘Well, sure Ken.’

I lead him out of the cafeteria by the hand. This wasn’t how I’d expected to spend lunch.

So, here’s what happened yesterday: Butters showed up at my house at about 9AM. Luckily, Karen was playing in the loungeroom and wanted to show him her dolls, so I had time to spray Anya and make sure most of my rats were asleep before he came looking for me. He invited me to hang out at his house.

‘Why didn’t you just call?’ I asked. I was making Karen and myself toast. Breakfast at the McCormick house was slim pickings, but we always had bread. Even when we had no milk, hot water or electricity, bread was an essential. Since getting married, Liane Cartman had quite her job and taken up jam making. When she heard about Anya’s death she gave us three jars of apple jam. It tasted dynamite, even if it smelt like a compost heap in the summer

‘Well, I wanted to check on Karen, of course.’

Karen beamed at him and took a bite of toast. I imagined gnats flying around it and it put me off my own food. Then I remembered the flies hovering over Anya and wanted to barf.

‘Here.’ I put my piece of toast on Karen’s plate.

‘Aren’t you hungry?’ she asked.

I shrugged. ‘I’m getting sick of fermented apples.’

‘Jam isn’t fermented,’ Karen said.

‘Exactly.’

Butters frowned and Karen waggled her eyebrows like he missed a joke.

While walking we held hands. His palms were sweaty. Occasionally he’d let go and wipe his palm on the thigh of his jeans. When he grabbed my hand again the wind had turned the sweat cold. Our hands still fit together perfectly. Like the pieces of a really gay puzzle.

‘Your hands are real warm today.’

‘Nah,’ I said. ‘You’re just cold.’

‘I told ya, I’m never cold.’

Butters’ parents weren’t home. His mother’s never home on weekends. She has mother’s groups, pottery classes, book club, and her affair. That last one was just an assumption. If she is having an affair, it’s with the middle-aged German guy who owns the bookstore our mothers always meet at. His names Gustav. He has his High School yearbook photo framed behind the counter. Gustav used to have long blond hair. He wears a silver chain necklace and tie-dyed shirts. Gustav’s a hippy.

Sometimes he puts his arm on Linda Stotch’s back while helping her reach a book and her face turns red. Her face never turns red when her husband touches her. My face turns red when Linda Stotch’s son touches me, so I know what that means.

Every time I looked at Butters I remembered how it felt when he kissed me. His lips were soft. Fleshy. Warm. While I know I should’ve expected that, my only other recent experience with kissing was not soft or fleshy or warm. Like, at all. But that isn’t why I keep thinking about it. There’s more to kissing than your partner not being dead. When his lips touched mine I felt it in my whole face. It only lasted a second, but that was long enough for my skin to go hot and tingly and my eyes to droop. My heart got faster. My head got heavy like it does when I’m really relaxed. It was nice.

Instead of sitting in the living room and playing Overcooked we went up to his bedroom. Butters’ bedroom was neat to the point of not looking lived-in. His bed was made to hotel-standards, the top-sheet folded over the duvet and the sides of the blankets tucked under the mattress. His nightstand and desk were bare except for a lamp on each. There was nothing on top of his dresser. The aqua-coloured walls were blank.

It made me sad. I don’t have much in my room, but it’s enough to show it’s mine. That room didn’t look like it belonged to anybody.

‘Sorry about the mess,’ he said. It was an automatic phrase for him. Rehearsed. If he didn’t say it he’d be grounded.

‘It’s fine.’ I sat on the edge of his bed. I didn’t flop across it like I would at Cartman’s. Butters and I have been friends for years but I still watch how I act around him. I know I’m being stupid. Why the fuck would I be afraid of disappointing the guy who likes everyone? I don’t know. I just know that I don’t really care what Cartman thinks of me, but Butters is different. He said the same about me once.

Butters sat beside me. ‘So, a new Lorde album just came out. Wanna listen to it?’

I frowned. ‘Lorde’s still a thing?’ I thought Randy was done with that.

‘Of course she is.’ He looked annoyed.

‘Sure.’

He pulled a pink Bluetooth speaker out of the bottom drawer of his desk, which I could see was full of electronics and charging cords. Everything beside his clothes were probably packed into those drawers. I imagined having to fit my entire life into four desk drawers. I could do it. But I didn’t think Stan or Kyle or Cartman could. He put it on the desk.

He unlocked his phone and opened Spotify. The song opened with a woman’s voice and Butters put phone on the desk. I recognised it as something they played on morning radio. I must have heard this song a dozen times on the bus. I didn’t know Randy wrote it.

I couldn’t think about that for long because Butter’s grabbed my forearm and pulled me up. I stood in the middle of his room, watching him spin. Then he swayed and nodded in time with the lyrics, not the music. The drumbeat drops and he starting jumping. The floor and furniture shook, and I bet his parents would have grounded him if they were home. I jumped too. The song slowed back down and he laughed.

Butters puts his hands on my wrists and I slide my hands up into his. I don’t know how to dance and I think he could tell, because he pulled me around until we were spinning. I watched his face. He was smiling. I smiled too.

The song finished and he tugged my hands down until I fell into a kiss. It was longer then last time. His grip tightened on my hands until it couldn’t anymore. He let go. The kiss ended and I fell backwards onto his bed. He went back over to his desk and changed the song.

I didn’t hear it.

He flopped down beside me. ‘That was fun.’

I grinned, my face burning up and my heart in my ears. ‘Yeah.’

His hand grazed mine. I grabbed it.

We stayed like that until his mum got home.

The halls outside of the cafeteria are empty. I let go of Butters hand. ‘Um.’ I don’t know what to say, my thoughts are less thoughts and more feelings. Feelings of complete confusion.

‘What’s wrong, Ken?’ He wrings his hands.

‘Don’t do that.’

‘Oh, right. Sorry.’ He puts his hands in the pockets of his baby blue hoodie.

‘It’s fine.’

‘So, what’s wrong?’

‘Are we dating?’

He beams. ‘Of course we are, silly. That’s why I keep kissin’ ya!’

I nod. It’s flawless logic, but I still feel the need to object. ‘We never talked about this. You never asked me out.’

He frowns. ‘Well, I just thought you liked me. Don’t you like me?’ His eyes widen. The seeds of panic. Humiliation. His cheeks pinken.

‘I do.’

He exhales. ‘Then what’s the problem?’

I have a lot of problems. None are specifically to do with Butters or the idea of dating Butters, but they’re all valid reasons this shouldn’t be happening. Anya, for one. If anyone found out I have a talking corpse in my room I’d be in deep shit. The kind that clogs the drain and leaves everything in the house with a permanent stink. But Anya won’t be there for long. All I have to do is text Michael and organise another ritual. No one will find her.

‘Okay,’ I say. ‘I guess we’re dating.’

We go back into the cafeteria. We’re holding hands, but this time no one looks at us. They’re all looking at Cartman who is covering his face and has blood drenching the chest of his grey jumper.

I rush over and pull his hands down. He looks at me with a pallid face. Both of his pupils are blown and the white of his damaged eye is red. Not red as in swollen and veiny, but actually red. Like when you peel away a patch of skin to reveal throbbing, bloody muscle. It’s like his eye has been flayed.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asks. His voice holds a fear I’ve never heard before. ‘Kenny? For fuck’s sake man, what is it?’ He’s getting hysterical.

I don’t bother asking if he can see. It’s obvious by the way he clings to my arms that he can’t. His good eye darts around my face like a skittish cat. His bad eye doesn’t move. Immobilized. 

I’m pissed. Normally I like seeing Cartman suffer, he deserves most than what he gets most of the time, but right now I’m pissed. He saw a doctor and an optometrist a few days ago, but they must not have found anything if his mother sent him to school. He could spring his pinky finger and she’d let him stay home. She’s real protective like that. Her biggest flaw as a parent is that she always trusts doctors over her own gut, even after the hospital helped her steal her son’s kidney and then barely a year later gave him aids. But they found nothing and now his eye is bleeding and can’t move. I wonder if they even ran tests.

I remember something. A man’s voice, pain—hot then cold—and something about a baked potato. It’s probably nothing. Or maybe it did happen and it just wasn’t important. I’ve been to the ER more times than I can count, and definitely more than we can afford, so they’re bound to have fucked me over at least once. It’s a statistical certainty.

Medical malpractice is the norm in this inbred hick town. If you haven’t been given aids or lost a kidney or had your heart replaced by a baked potato, are you really from South Park?

I must be craving baked potatoes. I should ask the lunch lady when we’re having that next. It’s the vegetarian option some days, and the school doesn’t give a shit if you’re actually vegetarian or not when you ask for it.

‘You need to go to the hospital,’ I say to Cartman, because he’s more important than potatoes right now. 

He nods.

Butters and I walk him to the nurse’s office. She isn’t there, because of course she isn’t. This is South Park, after all. Since when have the adults here actually wanted to help us?

*

Karen’s happy for us.

I knew she would be. I think she likes Butters more than me, especially lately when he seems to understand her so well. I’ve been busy with teenager shit. Voodoo and necromancy and graverobbing are teenager shit, if you didn’t already know.

She hugged us when Butters told her.

‘Do you guys want to walk home without me? You know, for alone time.’ She looks up. Her arms are still wrapped around our waists.

‘Of course not, Karen.’ Butters pats her hair. ‘We can’t ask you to walk alone. That’d be mean.’

‘I can take the bus,’ she says. She lets go and kneels down to dig out her bus card.

‘No way.’ I can’t leave Karen alone. Not after last time.

She pouts. ‘I’ll be fine, Ken. Those guys don’t take the bus, anyway.’

‘They also don’t normally hang around the elementary school either, but look what happened.’

‘Actually, they kind of do. I’m pretty sure flower-guy is in high school, so he shouldn’t even be hanging around _here_ but he still does.’

It occurs to me that Michael has always been a year above us, yet we’re in our last year of middle school and he’s still here. I’d just assumed he got held back. Probably for spending all his time at the wrong schools.

Butters leans his head on my shoulder and his hair tickles my cheek. ‘You sure, Kare? I don’t want’cha causing your brother no grieve,’ he says sternly. Sometimes he takes over the role of big brother. It’s cute.

She smirks. ‘Yes, Mister Stotch. I’m sure.’

‘Well, alright then.’ He flicks her nose when she stands up. ‘Right, buddy?’

I hesitate, then nod. If this is what Karen wants, then fine. I’m still scared, but I like her confidence. I haven’t seen this side of her in ages. The side that says she’s knows she’s worth something. It’s the side I’ve spent the most time nurturing. McCormick’s are quitters, but Karen isn’t always going to be McCormick. If I have my way, she’s going to leave behind our dead-end name and marry an important guy who does important-guy shit. I don’t know what kind of shit important guys do because I’ll never be one, but I know they live good lives. Just look at Token’s house. You can’t live there and not be happy.

She holds up her bus card. ‘I’ll be fine,’ she repeats.

‘I trust you,’ I say, because it’s true.

She rolls her eye. ‘It’s the other kids you don’t trust, I know. I’ve heard it all before, _dad_.’

I grin and ruffle her hair the way I know she hates. Pieces of brown hair slip out of her ponytail and stick up as if from static. ‘Get a move on before I ground you.’

She sticks her tongue out and runs off.

Butters squeezes my forearm. I look at him. He smiles. ‘She seems happy.’

‘Yeah,’ I say.

I put my arm around Butters’ shoulder while we walk. I ask him how the rest of his weekend went. It went well. His parents were relaxed when they got home. Gustav must have taken a lot out of her because Linda went straight to bed. She didn’t even make dinner, but Steven didn’t yell at her for it but instead ordered him and Butters pizza. That’s a rare occurrence. He says only lazy parents get their kids take-out. My parents are too drunk and poor to be lazy. Butters asks about my rats.

‘They’re good. Edgar and Winston have been fighting a lot, though.’

He giggles. ‘Those are funny names.’

Their names fit. My rats are very prestigious. They nest in the best torn clothes the McCormick household has to offer, and eat only the finest scraps. Nothing mouldy for such elite figures in rodent society.

I spot two familiar faces across the street, so stop and I wave. Butters tilts his head at the unfamiliar boys. ‘Hey, what’s up?’ I say.

Craig and Tweek stop walking and glance at each other. Tweek twitches violently and headbutts Craig’s shoulder. He rubs it while Tweek apologises, arms flailing. They cross the street.

‘Hey Kenny,’ Craig says.

‘S-sup man?!’ Tweek tugs at the front of him mis-buttoned shirt. He’s doing that thing where he doesn’t blink. The bags go all the way around his eyes, making him look like a racoon. Or like someone with two black eyes. He probably smacked himself in the face while spazzing.

‘I don’t see you guys around here often,’ I say. Then I remember Tweek only lives a block away from me. I’m lucky not to see them around here often.

‘Um, are-are you Craig Tucker?’ Butters asks. He rubs his knuckles together.

‘Stop that,’ I say at the same time Tweek yells ‘that’s bad for your hands!’

Tweek and I look at each other and smile. Butters puts his arm back around my waist. Maybe Tweek isn’t completely psychotic.

‘Yeah. Do I know you?’ Craig asks.

‘Well, I’m Butters. We were in Mr Garrison’s class together.’

Craig shrugs. ‘I don’t remember.’

Butters looks down. His shoulders sag. I poke him in the side, where I know he’s ticklish. He elbows me in the side.

‘Jackass.’

He snorts.

Craig looks between us, or more specifically, at the way we’re holding each other. ‘Don’t tell me you two are dating,’ he says with distain.

‘Yeah?’ I frown. His reaction seems more than I little hypocritical. At least my boyfriend doesn’t move like he’s about to implode. Tweek shakes like there’s a level six earthquake happening, but only where he’s standing.

He glares. ‘What about Anya?’

‘What about her?’ I snap. ‘She’s dead.’

‘She’s your wife.’

Butters pulls away and puts his hands on his hips. ‘You’re married?’

‘No! I’m only fourteen!’

Butters is a smart boy, but sometimes he lacks common sense in the same way our parents do. Sometimes I worry growing up in this town means getting progressively more stupid until we end up on a stage, singing about country music versus rock ‘n roll.

‘Yes, he is,’ Craig says to Butters, but he points his glare squarely at me.

I return it. ‘You can’t legally marry someone after they’re dead.’

‘OhmyGoditwasallyourfault!’ Tweek screeches. He grabs both sides of his own head and pulls so hard I swear I can hear the strands snapping. ‘She’sgoneandhe’sgoingtokillusallandit’sallbecauseyoucan’tkeepitinyourfuckingpantsyouruinedourlivesyouruinedeverythingohmyGod—’

‘Tweek, stop it.’ Craig pulls his hands down.

Tweek tries to pull back but Craig holds on tight. He continues rambling at lightning speed. I don’t understand any of it. I’ve activated Tweek’s self-destruct sequence. Tweek.exe has stopped responding. Flight 101 with Tweek Airlines has stalled at the tarmac. Craig’s efforts to fix things are futile.

‘Ken,’ Butters tugs on my arm. I look at him. He looks scared. ‘What’s wrong with these fellas?’

I sigh. I still have unfinished business with the Osiris guys, so I may as well get it over with. ‘Go home Butters, I’ll meet you their soon. I’ve just got a few things I need to take care of with these freaks.’

He kisses me on the cheek and runs off. He runs from us. From me, because of Tweek and Craig. Fuck these guys.

‘Come on,’ I say.

Tweek freezes. ‘What?’ he asks. It’s like his nuclear meltdown never happened. Disaster averted, I guess.

‘We’re going to my house. I’ve got something important to show you.’

‘How important?’ Craig asks.

I roll my eyes. I doubt these guys have anything better to do today. ‘It’s Orisis stuff.’

Craig nods and they follow me home.

My door’s locked from the inside, so we climb in through the window. It’s also how I left this morning. Karen asked a lot of questions, but I told her I had to do it because of boy stuff. Dead bodies are boy stuff.

The smell hits—rot, shit and wildflowers—and both Tweek and Craig cover their faces with their shirts.

‘Dude, what the fuck?’ Craig asks. They stay by the open window.

I pull the blanket off my bed. The one I’d covered Anya with to discourage the rats. We’re slapped with the corpse-air and Craig gags. Tweek lowers his shirt and stares at Anya, his mouth open. I think he’s going to scream, but instead he sits beside her and brushes her hair back the same way I did last night.

‘Who’s this?’ Anya asks. Her voice is groggy like she’s just woken up.

‘Ngh, I’m Tweek,’ Tweek answers before I get a chance to.

‘Oh, are you Kenny’s friend?’

‘You could say that.’

‘You can hear her?’ I ask.

‘Of course! Craig can to.’

Craig nods.

‘But I thought I was special. You know, being married and all.’ I have to force out the words. Thinking about Anya as my wife puts a bad taste in my mouth. Like bile and cotton and blood.

Tweek gives me a reassuring smile. ‘Gah! You are! But so are we. That’s why we make the dolls!’

Craig sticks his head out the window and takes a deep breath. When he turns back around he looks bored. ‘This better be worth it, McCormick.’

‘I think if we redo the ritual with her body, it’ll work. For some reason, her soul’s gone back to it.’

‘Yeah, man! That sounds perfect!’ Tweek isn’t twitching, he’s vibrating. Like an idling car.

Craig shrugs. ‘Sure. I’m guessing you want us to tell Damien.’

I nod.

‘Fine, coward.’

‘Oh!’ Tweek scrambles off the bed and rushes over to me. He grabs my right arm. His nails are sharp. He shoves his free hand into his pocket and pulls something out. A bracelet, I realise. A homemade bracelet with a randomly arranged mix of light and dark blue beads. ‘I made you this. It’s, nnn, for good luck.’ He slides it onto my wrists. His hands shake and he bites lip, like this is the hardest thing he’s ever had to do. His nails cut into my skin and leave behind red crescent moons.

He lets go of my arm.

‘Thanks, Tweek.’

‘Gah! You’re welcome!’ He beams. It registers that this weird guy made me a present. A piece of jewellery, of all things. My face heats up.

They leave the same way they came in.

Craig goes first. Once he’s outside, he flips me off with both hands.

‘Bye Anya!’ Tweek yells before slamming the window behind himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Pete!


	9. Feeling Bad (Pete)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pete spends the day with Mike in the hospital.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been away from this project for WAY too long and this chapter is total, absolute shit, but I'm determined to get back into the swing of things.

Mike isn’t getting better, but he also hasn’t gotten any worse. His body is holding on, stuck in this turbulent state where everything is breaking down, but only one piece at a time and slow enough that he can still fight it. He heals one piece while the other collapses. That’s what the doctors think, anyway. No one knows what’s wrong, just that something always is. His heart is impacted to varying degrees, but today he’s also having trouble with his kidneys. Yesterday he couldn’t breathe. They think it’s in his blood now. They’re getting closer.

I don’t hide in the alley anymore. After what happened at Stark’s Pond, I decided I needed to accept what’s happening and be here for Mike. Michael can’t accept what happened to his cousin, now he’s torturing conformists and being sucked in by Damien Thorn’s flaming parlour tricks. Just because he can make pictures appear in a fire it doesn’t mean he knows how to raise the dead. Michael isn’t stupid, he should understand this, but he’s so desperate for a sick occultist miracle that he refuses to see the obvious. None of them can. Even that Kenny kid is starting to believe it. I can’t blame him, if I hadn’t believed in Damien, at least for a little while, I would be sitting beside a hospital bed.

It’s not that I think he’s a complete fraud, he knows exactly what he can and can’t do, I just think he’s evil. Anyone can claim to be the descendant of an Egyptian God, but it takes a monster to use that claim to hurt grieving children.

Mike squeezes my hand. I smile, looking past him to the cracked white walls. The room stinks of disinfectant, deodorant, and something else I can’t place. Something rotten and decaying. It’s been getting stronger. ‘Hey.’

‘What’re you thinking about?’ His words are muffled by sleep. He’s always sleeping yet the bags under his eyes are getting worse.

‘Nothing.’

‘Well, I was thinking about you.’

‘Did you dream about me, too?’

‘Of course.’ He forces a laugh.

I trace circles with my thumb along the back of his hand.

‘They keep running tests on me, I wish they’d stop.’

‘They’re just trying to help you.’ I thought that was the case for the first few tests, but I overheard two nurses discussing the smell while they argued over who’d bathe him. They think it’s coming from his mouth, which is a sign of kidney failure. If I weren’t so worried about Mike I’d have told both of them to go fuck themselves—that Mike doesn’t need help from such self-centred, vapid bitches.

He pulls his hand away. ‘Look at me.’

I stop smiling. My eyes slip down to the railing on the other side of his bed. A thin tube runs under it and up to a bag of blood, neatly labels as A positive. He’s anaemic. They think it’s a side-effect of whatever’s happening. They don’t know where his blood is going, but he’s losing it faster than a stab-victim. He’s bleeding out into nowhere, into a void we created just to make him suffer, and if Damien could do anything but parlour tricks, I’d think he set this all up just to torture me.

‘Pete, look at me.’ His voice is sterner now, stronger. He struggles to stay awake for more than an hour at a time, so I bet this conversation is exhausting him.

I take a deep breath and look at his grey face, the skin tight against his skull, and his tired green eyes. A layer of hair covers his pillow like the floor of a salon, and his scalp is bare in patches. He closes his eyes and pulls his lips up into what passes as a smile, but looks like far too much work to be real.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say.

‘This isn’t your fault.’

‘You don’t have to lie to me.’

He opens his eyes and looks straight into mine, the most focused I’d seen him since he got sick. ‘I’m not.’ He pulls my hand to his lips and kisses it. ‘You didn’t force me or trick me into anything, you never lied to me. I knew as much as you did and I agreed to it all. No one knew this would happen. I don’t blame you.’

My throat becomes tight and sore. ‘You should,’ I take a moment to supress an ugly sob, ‘it’d be easier with you mad at me.’ It’d be easier if I didn’t feel like I’m getting away with murder.

‘I’m not going to punish you just because you want me to.’

I wipe my eyes on my sleeve. The tears never fell but my face is burning. ‘You never do anything I tell you to.’

He reaches up to touch my face, but his arm shakes too much and he grabs my shoulder instead. His eyes are back to being hazy and half-lidded, how they usually look if he stays awake too long. I take his wrist and guide him until he’s cupping my cheek. He always holds my face like this when I’m upset, both so he can comfort me and so I can’t turn away from him, but it feels different now. His palm is freezing, just like the rest of him, and hard from the protruding bones. ‘Exactly. I never do what you tell me, so how could you have made me do this?’

‘I told you I could make you a vampire.’

He hums in a way that might have been a laugh, if he could manage it. ‘I never believed it’d actually work.’

I don’t understand. Why would he put his life at risk if he didn’t believe it’d work? He knew how dangerous being the centre of a ritual could be, I told him so myself. ‘If you didn’t believe it’d work, then why’d you go along with it?’

‘Because I’m stupid, and I like spending time with you. I didn’t know what’d happen, but I knew it… it wouldn’t be like you said.’ He shuts his eyes again and his arm goes limp. A few seconds later he’s snoring.

I lower his arm back to his side. The heart-rate monitor is still beeping erratically, but it’s slower when he’s asleep. It’s like it takes so much energy now to keep his heart going that there’s nothing left for movement and conscious thought. Maybe he’d be better off in a coma. I suspect they’re only trying to keep him awake to ask him how he’s feeling, since his pain is the only way they know what to test, and that pain changes every day.

He wasted energy trying to comfort me, but I don’t feel any better. He’s stupid and impulsive, but I knew that when he asked me out. I knew that when I found that bullshit ritual and made promise that were impossible to keep. Of course he’d agree, even at the risk of his own life, he never argues with me about things that actually matter. He loves me too much.

It might seem stupid thinking a fourteen and fifteen-year-old can be in love, but there’s no other way justify the way he acts. He’s dying because of me and he’s not even angry. 

There’s a tap on the glass window. I turn around to find Tweek Tweak peaking through the hallway blinds, a cardboard tray of disposable coffee cups in one hand and the other in his hair. I nod and he comes in.

He puts the tray beside me on the side table, in front a vase of yellow roses. A gift from Bloodrayne. There are three cups—one for each of us. Every time he visits—which he’s been doing every afternoon for the last few days—he brings a drink for Mike, despite me saying he won’t want it. He’s afraid of offending Mike, a guy he barely knows, and who has bigger problems than his boyfriend’s friend not bringing enough coffee. It’s sweet, in a gross, rom-com sort of way.

Aside from Mike and my friends, Tweek’s the only other person I actually like. He never shuts up and is terrified of everything, but he’s here because he genuinely cares about my well-being. He’s like a noisier Larry.

He hands me a drink and I take a gulp, savouring it. Black coffee with one sugar, the same as always. ‘Thanks.’

He grabs his own cup and stands beside me, shifting from foot to foot. He stares at Mike, frowning, like he’s trying to figure something out. He always does this. I get up and sit on the edge of the bed, gesturing to the chair.

‘Ghn, thanks!’ he says and sits down hard enough to make the plastic legs scrape. ‘How—how are you?’

I nod. It’s not an answer, but he knows what I mean. I don’t want to talk about how I feel.

‘That’s fair.’ He takes a sip of his drink and his arm spasms, splashing coffee onto his shirt. He doesn’t seem to notice, and I wonder what it’s like to be that stuck in your own head. 

‘What about you?’ I remember the way Michael spoke to him at Stark’s Pond, like it was his fault we couldn’t do the impossible, when really the only reason we can do what we can is because of Tweek. Damien isn’t the only one who can perform tricks. Tweek’s dolls are more than the sum of their material, an illusion in a flame, or a vessel to trap weak souls. He could kill me at any moment if he wanted. He’s probably more powerful than Damien, he just doesn’t realise it, just like he doesn’t realise there’s hot coffee on his shirt. He’s too paranoid to consider trying to do things on his own. He won’t even make dolls without his normal, conformist boyfriend. Sometimes I think this potential is wasted on someone with a brain like his, but I know that isn’t true, because even if he was normal, I don’t think he’d want to hurt people. Yet, that’s all his dolls really let him do. That’s all any of us know how to do.

‘Not good, man! Shit’s getting crazy! I can’t take all this pressure!’ His arms shake and he looks down at them, brows furrowed, visibly concentrating on keeping them still.

‘I know what you mean.’

My phone buzzes in my pocket. I keep it on vibrate while in the hospital to avoid waking Mike, although, realistically, I know there’s no danger of that. At this point, I’m more scared that he _won’t_ wake up.

I put the phone to my ear without checking the caller ID. I really don’t care who it is. ‘What?’ I say.

 _‘You’re still at the hospital, then?’_ It’s Henrietta.

‘Yeah.’

There’s a beat of silence. _‘How is he?’_ The guilt in her voice makes me sick. I don’t want her to feel bad—none of this was her idea—but I can’t help feeling glad she does. I resent everyone who was there that night, even though it was all my idea, and I resent myself even more for it. I don’t want to hate my friends over my own fuck up, not when they were just trying to help me. No one is blaming me for my own actions and it makes me feel worse. I’m a glutton for self-loathing.

‘Sleeping. What do you want?’ I don’t let her linger on her worries.

_‘I know this is really bad timing, but Michael wanted me to call you.’_

I sigh. It’s better to get this over with now, while I’m calm. ‘Okay, what’s he want?’

_‘We’re meeting him at his house at eight.’_

‘Is this an Osiris thing?’ I see Tweek move in my peripheral. He twitches hard, slamming his head into his shoulder, and bites down on his hand.

_‘Probably. He said not to tell Damien.’_

My stomach drops. A voice—my intuition, I suppose—whispers that something isn’t right, but I ignore it. ‘Okay, I’ll be there.’ I hang up.

‘What’s happening?!’ Tweek demands. There’re flaming red teeth-marks on the back of his hand, where he bit down to silence himself. ‘Is there going to be another ritual tonight? I can do it, man, I’ve got plans with my parents! What will they say? I can’t lie to them, I’m no good at lying! Oh God, do I need another doll? Of who?! I’m out of wool and stuffing and green fabric!’

I wait for him to finish rambling. ‘It’s fine, it’s not a meeting. I’m just hanging out with my friends.’

‘Oh.’

‘Yeah.’

‘So, nothing to do with Anya?’

I probably shouldn’t say anything, what with Tweek’s tendency towards theatrical reactions, but the same voice is in my ear again, and I can’t stop myself. ‘She said not to tell Damien.’

Tweek stares at me, momentarily still. After a minute, he scrunches his eyes shut and growls, barring his teeth.

‘You okay?’

‘DoesthishaveanythingtodowithKenny?’ He demands, his voice coming out in one long huff of jumbled syllables.

‘What?’

‘Does—this—have—anything—to—do—with—Kenny?’ He glares at me, mouth squished into a pout. He’s cute in a harmless way, like a cat or a rodent.

‘I don’t know, probably.’ I answer him honestly. He’s got a face that’s hard to lie to, because it’s not a face I don’t want to see hurt.

‘I don’t trust Damien.’

‘Me either.’

‘But I trust Michael even less.’

I frown. ‘Michael’s an asshole, but he means well. He’s nothing like Damien.’

Tweek puts downs his cup and grips the sides his head. He tangles his fingers in the hair, but doesn’t pull. ‘Michael has a—a one track mind. He’s dangerous because he doesn’t mean to be dangerous, he can’t even see what he’s doing. He’s—he’s going to hurt Kenny without even meaning to, I just know it! And that’s what Damien is counting on!’

‘No,’ I say, contemplating his words. ‘He doesn’t like hurting people, but if he hurts Kenny it’s going to be on purpose. You’re right, he has got a one track mind, and he’s getting carried away with this. He really loved his cousin.’

‘And—And Damien’s just using that.’

I nod. ‘He is.’

‘I won’t tell Damien about this, just, uh, please prom— _nh_ —promise to look out for Kenny. I have a bad feeling.’

‘Sure, Tweek.’ I have a bad feeling too.

*

It’s about seven when the nurses kick me out. They usually let me eat dinner with Mike, not that he can eat that much, and sometimes I’m allowed to stay the night. Tonight, Mike’s parents were there, so there wasn’t enough room for all of us. I tried to protest, but Mrs Makowski told me I needed a good night’s sleep. I can’t argue with her—not when she looks at me like she’s about to shatter. It ended up being a good thing, since remembered the phone call with Henrietta. My stomach tightens. I hope Michael isn’t getting too desperate.

I light up a cigarette—the first since that morning—and savour the taste. My body relaxes and I stop to lean against the wall of a closed café, the knot in my stomach working itself out. I hadn’t realised how much I needed this. It’s amazing how, in a time of crisis, withdrawal can take a backseat. If I were a more selfish person, or maybe just more logical, I’d be using this to quit.

A black SUV pulls up beside me, distracting me from my moment of bliss. A bulky, towering man with a bald head and familiar red eyes steps out. He’s dressed in a black suit with a purple vest and high-heeled boots. He sizes me up and I do the same to him, trying my best to look confident.

‘Are you Peter Thelman?’ he asks in a deep, guttural voice.

‘Yeah.’

‘I’m Mr Thorn, Damien’s father. I’d like to talk to you.’ He gestures to the vehicle.

The voice in my head is back, screaming at me to run. I try, but the most I can do is slide back my left foot. My muscles have turned to stone. I look towards the hospital, hoping someone will come out that I can signal for help, but there’s no one. I look back at the man, and he frowns.

‘Get in the car, please. I’ll drive you home.’

I look between him and the SUV.

He sighs. ‘Look, Kid, I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to sort some things out. I promise you’ll get home in one piece.’

Seeing that I don’t have a choice, I drop what’s left of my cigarette and get in the back. He’s close to seven feet tall and the size of a body-builder, while I haven’t slept properly or eaten a decent meal in weeks. Trying to run from him would just be embarrassing.

He gets back into the driver’s seat and asks for my address. I give him Michael’s.

He starts the car. ‘So, I understand my son has been causing trouble, in relation to a dead little girl. God rest her soul.’

Trouble? That’s an understatement.

‘He means well, I promise. We’re doing very important work, but we can’t do it alone. I need your help with something.’

‘Why me? Why not Michael or Tweek or that Kenny kid?’ I don’t think Tweek could handle getting more involved than he is, but I’m sure he’d be more useful, and Michael would be more willing.

‘No, they wouldn’t. Michael’s only stake in this is trying to bring back his cousin, but we aren’t doing that anymore. She isn’t as important as we thought. I can’t use Tweek Tweak anymore either, since he’s becoming a wild card.’

This guy’s a mind reader, just like his son.

‘As for Kenny, he’s why I need your help. I need you to give him something, and in return I have something that might slow down the curse on your boyfriend.’

My guts jump into my oesophagus and block my airways. ‘You can save him.’

He sighs. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t think a group of kids could fuck up this bad. Honestly, I don’t think he’ll make it.’

My guts twist and swell and go septic in my mouth. My body is empty, skin pulled so tight against muscles I can’t move, and bile burns through my veins. ‘What can you give me?’ I’m whispering, so I hope he can hear me. I don’t think I have the strength to repeat myself.

I killed Mike.

‘You’ll get it once you’ve passed this on.’ He pulls up outside of two-story house and leans over the passanger side, sifting through the glove-box. I look at the lights in the window and at the driveway full of cars. Michael’s parents are home. His mum probably made us dinner—she’s nice like that—but I won’t be able to eat it. He turns around in his seat and hands me a red marble. It’s sticky and warm, like a freshly made hard candy. ‘Make sure Kenny eats this.’

‘What’ll it do?’

‘You don’t need to know that.’ 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Kenny.


	10. Piece by Piece (Kenny)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Secrets are revealed and Kenny has a really bad time (what else is new?).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe how quickly I got this done! 
> 
> This chapter gets sad, but be patient. I've got a plan.

It’s Tuesday night. Butters is over with his laptop so I can work on a not-particularly-school-appropriate project. The only computer in our house is a Toshiba laptop from 2008 and it’s in my parent’s room. I wouldn’t even touch that thing if I were wearing a hazmat suite. I know what dad uses it for, and I know what his hygiene is like. The rats in my closet spend more time in the shower than he does. Touching that keypad would practically be incest.

Butters is currently on the floor playing dolls with Karen. I try to concentrate on the computer screen, but keep finding myself staring at them instead. Butters has a beautiful smile. I focus on the Wikipedia article. A line makes me pause and I reread it a couple of times. I try and different (more reliable) website and it says the same thing. I feel stupid for not researching this earlier.

‘It says here that Osiris didn’t resurrect, not permanently,’ I say.

Butters looks up with a raised eyebrow. ‘Of course not, didn’t you know that?’

‘No, I didn’t know that.’

‘Why’d you join a group about a God you know nothin’ about?’

I feel even more stupid. Sweet innocent Butters knows more about morbid Egyptian mythology than I do. ‘I’m researching it now.’

‘Even the Egyptians know necromancy ain’t possible.’

So why does Michael think that a guy who couldn’t keep himself alive would be able to resurrect his cousin? I lean my head back and put my hands over my face. A spring from the couch is digging into my thigh. I’m not a God like Isis and even she couldn’t resurrect her husband. Whether we’re married according to the Russian mob or not doesn’t mean shit. 

‘You okay, Ken?’ Butters asks.

I lower my hands. Both Karen and Butters have stopped their game to stare at me. ‘Yeah, I’m fine. Just tired.’

Butters frowns. ‘Karen, can you please go to your room for a while? I need to talk to your brother.’

‘Aye-aye.’ She salutes us. He salutes her back.

Once Karen and her dolls have left, he climbs up onto the couch. He sits cross-legged facing me. ‘Now, what’s really on your mind?’ 

I smile and mimic his position. ‘Michael, or rather, Damien, said that I could resurrect Anya because I’m her husband,’ I cringe at the word. ‘He said they need the power of Osiris because Isis, his wife, resurrected him. But she didn’t, not properly, so I don’t know why he’s doing this to me.’

‘Well, why’re you worrying about it? You said yourself that this necro—necromancy stuff was all a bunch of baloney.’

I lower my chin to my chest and close my eyes. I can’t say it’s because I’m starting to believe it. The couch springs scratches my leg through my thin tracksuit pants and it’s starting to itch. Life isn’t a Disney movie, its dirty and sore and itchy and everyone cries and vomits and shits a lot. It’s not something you can give back to someone through the power of love or marriage or whatever shit I bought into. Even if the corpse in my bedroom can talk, that doesn’t mean I can take her rot away. I’ve gotten carried away for nothing.

A warm hand strokes through my hair and hooks under my chin. Butters lifts my head, and when I open my eyes his face is barely and inch from mine. He kisses me. It’s soft and warm. I tilt my head and deepen the kiss, letting my mind go blank. His hand snakes through my hair and rests on the back of my neck.

Then the moment is ruined. Or, mores accurately, the moment is gone completely. I can’t feel his lips or his hand or myself and I wonder if it was a dream. But it wasn’t—this is.

I’m in the forest, but I’m not me. I don’t know who I am. I’m watching the Goth kids in the same clearing and the same stump that I watched fire dance on a few nights ago. They’re setting up candles. They’re arguing. Pete is yelling at Michael, who throws his hands up, and Henrietta rolls her eyes. Pete lifts his hand like he’s about to punch him, but Firkle, or whatever his name is, pulls him back.

The image blurs and I scrunch my eyes shut.

‘Kenny? Are you okay, buddy?’

Butters’ voice grounds me and I can feel the spring back under my thigh. It’s sore now. I open my eyes and Butters isn’t in front of my anymore, but standing over me. ‘What happened?’

His wide, worried eyes soften. ‘I don’t know, you just started shaking, then your eyes went all glassy and you collapsed on top of me. It was real scary. Are you okay?’

I wrap my arms around his waist and bury my face in his stomach. ‘I’m fine now.’

He giggles and puts a hand on my head. ‘Good.’ 

We stay like that. Him petting my hair and me half-suffocating in in his shirt. His breathing is steady. I try to match it. I hadn’t realised how out of breath whatever that was had left me. ‘Thank you,’ I mutter. He doesn’t hear me.

‘Kenny?’ Karen asks. I turn my head and see her in the kitchen doorway.

‘What is it, Kare-bear?’

She scrunches up her nose. ‘There’s a funky smell coming from your room and the rats are going crazy.’

I stand up so fast I knock Butters backwards. I manage to grab his arm before he falls. ‘Sorry.’

Most of the time, rats only do one of three things, and they’re the same three things all mammals do to survive: sleep, eat and fuck. They aren’t sleeping, and knowing my luck they aren’t fucking either. 

I run past Karen and through the kitchen to the hallway. My mind his full of rats eating Anya, Anya getting angry, my rats dying from all the poison inside of her. You know, normal stuff.

The door is locked from the inside but one good shove gets it open. Like I’d feared, Cecilia is on top of Anya, chewing on her nose. The skin peels off like wet tissue paper and clings to Cecilia’s chin. Gross.

I take a step forwards and another rat squeaks. Three crawl out from under her dress and retreat back into the closet. Cecilia lifts her wet face and hisses, as if daring me to come closer. I go to grab her but a scream as sharp as an electric shock freezes me in place.

Butters.

I spin around in time to see him sprint back down the hallway. He bangs into the kitchen doorframe as he passes through it. I follow with Karen on my heel. She calls out his name. I manage to grab his arm before he can open the front door. He tugs his arm away and glares at me. He’s crying.

‘I don’t know what—what’s goin’ on in there, but you keep away from me!’

I don’t know what to say to that. There’s nothing I _can_ say to that.

Karen grabs my hand and I squeeze it. She looks at me like she wants to ask a million questions. Questions like, why is my dead friend’s body in your room? How long has she been there? Aren’t you afraid the rats will try to eat you next? I give her a tight smile that says I’ll tell her everything later. I watch Butters yank open the door. It’s painful, but right now I owe Karen an explanation more than I owe him one. His wet, manic eyes tell me he wouldn’t listen anyway. Not right now.

He leaves the door open and run out onto the street.

We see the car coming, but it’s too late to warn him. We watch it hit.

He rolls over the speeding car and crumples to the asphalt. His arms are contorted behind his back. I watch it again and again at different speeds. At angles I can’t see. Close enough to see the shock on his face and far enough away to see it mirrored on my own. I replay his every step. I do this all at once. In my own mind but also not. It’s like someone else is showing me their own sick vantage point.

I try to run to his unmoving body, but Karen holds me back.

His face, bloody and pale, is skyward. His eyes are still open.

*

Butters’ funeral is held at the same church as Anya’s. The only church in South Park.

I skip the ceremony and go straight to the cemetery. Cartman isn’t here because he’s too sick, but if he was he would have been a pallbearer. Stan mentioned it when he stopped by the other day. I don’t remember what else he said. I haven’t been to school in a while. Maybe a week. I don’t know. I don’t know what day it is.

Tweek is here too. I can’t see Craig with him, but I’m not really looking. I’m mostly looking at the big white box with flowers on top and my boyfriend inside. They lower it in slow motion, Linda wailing and Stephen holding her back. I can’t decide if I feel bad for her or not. Her pain is obviously excruciating, but she’ll be fine in a week, just like the last two times she saw her son die. I wonder if she felt denial at first, like this was another cruel prank. 

Karen wraps her arms around my waist. She sobs into the back of my suit-jacket.

Kyle and Stan each drop a handful of dirt into the hole. Then Scott. Then Dougie. They all look at me like they’re waiting for something. I shake my head. Stephen gives me an understanding look, and I can tell by his tired eyes that he does, indeed, understand.

Slowly, maybe over the course of hours or minutes or seconds, everyone but Tweek and myself leave. Kyle takes Karen with him, telling her I need some time to process thing. That isn’t true. I’m very aware I’ve what’s just happened. I kneel on the fresh dirt and Tweek puts a hand on my shoulder. He doesn’t squeeze or even really hold it. His hand is just there.

‘Sorry, man. I can’t imagine what you’re going through.’

I don’t respond.

‘I’m not gonna say it gets better because I know it might not, but if there’s anything— _ghn!_ —I can do to help make things better, just ask.’

Then he leaves, too.

I put my hands in the dirt. The soft, damp soil squishes between my fingers like wet sand. I crawl towards the tombstone and lie on my back underneath it. I read the words, upside-down, over and over again until they become one big word that means nothing but makes me sad.

It’s too dark now to read his name, even if I were upright, and I wonder how long it will take for everyone to forget him, like they have everyone else in this cemetery. I scoop a handful of dirt and empty it onto my chest.

His eyes were open. I didn’t see how they buried him, but I hope they’re shut now. I hope under me, under the dirt, under the casket lid, his eyes are shut. I can’t remember if Anya’s were or not. It was so inconsequential at the time. People are going to forget important things about Butters like how his voice sounded, how he smelled, how tall he was. All the things I forgot about Anya. I feel a bit guilty, because no one deserves to be forgotten by those they loved, but mostly I just feel numb. I won’t forget this time. I’ll stay here and think about him until I come apart and melt piece by piece into the earth.

A face blocks my few of the stars I wasn’t looking at. Damien’s standing over me. His narrow, pale face glows, and his features are blurred in the darkness, aside from his eyes, which are vivid and red. He smiles, but has the decency to make it look sad.

‘What?’ I try to demand, but it barely sounds like a questioned.

‘I wanted to offer my condolences.’

‘Sure.’

‘And warn you that there’s something strange going on at your house.’

I roll onto my side, facing away from him. The soil is cold on my skin.

‘There were police cars and an ambulance. I believe I saw a body-bag, too.’

My heart stops. ‘Karen,’ I whisper.

‘She was fine. In fact, your whole family was, I wonder what happened?’ he sounds sarcastic. I realise what has happened.

They found Anya. I never explained what was going to Karen. In fact, I just left Anya, decomposing, on my bed for who knows how long. Anya’s body and all those plans I was making could not have been further from my mind. I don’t even know if Karen asked about it. Everything is covered by fog.

I stumble to my feet and run.

I can hear Damien laughing behind me. The sound gets fainter the further away from the cemetery I get, but it never stops. I can hear it in my mind when I reach my house.

There’s an ambulance and two police cars in the driveway. My window has an X over it made of police tape. My mother lights a cigarette, sitting on the porch, and from here I can see her hands shaking. Dad is speaking to police.

I keep running.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know what you're thinking but bear with me here. It'll be okay. This story does have a (sort of) happy ending.
> 
> Next chapter: Tweek


	11. I Trusted You (Tweek)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tweek has a mental breakthrough and breakdown.

Needle slides on nail slides on finger slides through skin. Put finger in your mouth. Copper tinted sting-wince-pain. Shake all over. No more dolls after this one. Just this one. One more. It’s what you always say but it’s the only thing you know how to do so why would you stop eating, sleeping, breathing if you need it to live? Everyone only does what they know how to do and this is what you can do this.

Speaking of sleep, you never do, don’t like the feeling. Vulnerable, like a baby on a doorstep in a snow storm. Like anything could happen and you wouldn’t be able to stop it you wouldn’t even know until it was too late. You could die in your sleep and you’d never know. You could lose circulation from a loose thread or the lamp cord. Or choke on your own vomit or a bug. Or have an allergic reaction to a bug bite or something you ate, since you read somewhere that food allergies can have delayed reactions, or even the white dust from the cracks in your ceiling since you’ve never licked it so you could be allergic! Or maybe get bitten by a poisonous spider. No matter what happens it’ll have all night to kill you and there’d be no way to get help.

It’s 2AM now or maybe 3 or 4 but don’t check because the bright light on the clock is like a green streetlight on a store front like they show on TV when characters go to big cities like Vegas or New York. You’ve never been to Vegas or New York but you’ve been to California and seen inside George Lucas’ house, back when you had friends. Who were your friends? Colours and smiles and voices and hats, but no names. Nothing concrete, no lifelines from elementary school, just enough not to claim amnesia. Names and faces fade in and out of your mind, reminding you of things you’re sure happened. The memories are there somewhere even when they’re not.

Phone vibrates. No ringtones, they’re too noisy. Scary like the alarm clock that woke you up for school back when you needed it. Open the text. It’s Craig. He’s outside and waiting for you to go downstairs and undo the deadbolts and let him in.

Parents are quiet as death and may as well be as you walk past their room. Bloody crooked-elbow veins full of liquid dreams. Stairs squeak under your weight and if there was a burglar you’d be dead by now. Wouldn’t go downstairs in a break-in. Would just call Craig. He always knows what to do. You trust him more than the police who plant drugs and yell at people and once let a fat kid shoot Token. You don’t remember much about that, either.

Unlock the door and the thick iron bolt with gold and brown rust that keeps you safer than computers could. Hug Craig. You don’t see his face but it’s okay because he’s tall and warm and smells like home. You’d know this smell anywhere. He’s more home than this house. Even if you couldn’t recognise his curved uphill nosed acne-star-dotted face you’d still always know him. He pulls back and looks at your face, all around it like following a path. He kisses the top of your head. Craig’s sweet like that.

‘Hey, babe.’ He’s sweet like this, too. He always does things to make sure you know he loves you because otherwise you never really know. Doubts are normal, Token says, but you doubt too much. You worry Craig will think he’s not doing enough but really he’s doing more than you could ever ask and you just can’t understand why he wastes so much time loving you. Hugs are him loving you. Coming to your house at 2, 3 or 4 because he knows you’re up alone are him loving you. He could find another boy with your same blond hair and green eyes but who doesn’t talk too much and doesn’t twitch and knows how to be quiet in movie theatres and who never pulls out his own hair or buttons his shirt wrong. But he doesn’t find someone else. He loves you and it’s baffling. It’s also beautiful, like him.

‘Grr, hi.’

‘You seemed tense earlier. Are you okay?’ He closes the door behind himself and puts his hands on your shoulders.

‘I’m, err, I’m m—making a Butters doll. For Kenny. I’m getting worried, man. This is too much shit for one person to deal with and I thought—and I thought—’ can’t get the words out. Brain is still like a broken CD but worse now like the cracks are spreading. Cracks spreading like cancer through your brain and barricading your tongue and tongue and teeth until you can only repeat the same words same words and gargle the rest. Except it’s not really like cancer because cancer is awful more awful than a stutter and you shouldn’t make light of it like that because otherwise you’re a terrible person _[I’m already a terrible person]_ and you don’t want to be a terrible person because you’ve had enough of those.

‘You thought you could help him. Got it.’

Nod. Craig always understands. The cracks are buffed out and plastered over and whatever else people do to cracks in things to make them less obvious. ‘So, could—could you help?’ Cracks are easy to hide from people who don’t know they’re there but Craig knows every inch of you like an ever-walked path.

‘Of course.’

Take Craig upstairs and finish sewing. Stitches look neater now. You aren’t bleeding. Craig brushes out the yellow wool for you, so you can make Butters’ hair. It’s fuzzier and more crimped than when you do it yourself, but it’s fine because the hair doesn’t matter anyway and you know he’s trying.

He punctures his wrist with the hole-punch and bleeds on the doll. Hand him a tissue and wait.

Wait forever.

Forever is real without a clock because without time every second is its own forever. Or something like that. Craig would know what I mean, he’s good with temporal science.

Nothing happens.

The doll is silent like the Kenny doll and any other doll’s you’ve made of cognitive people, but with no aura. No aura at all.

‘I don’t understand.’

Craig looks at you and his face says nothing. ‘What’s wrong?’

Frown at him. He should be able to see this too. ‘What do you mean, _what’s wrong?!_ Look at it!’ 

He picks up the doll and stares at it. ‘Oh, yeah.’

‘Oh—oh yeah?’ He’s not worried at all but you have spiders crawling around in your stomach and up your throat.

‘Its aura’s funny.’

The spiders mould together into a big black ball and crush your kidneys and intestines and appendix. Toxins cover them and fill your veins and you want to spit them at Craig because there is no aura there can’t be an aura if you can’t see it so why would he lie about this?

‘What?’

‘Is that not the problem?’

He put the doll in his lap and doesn’t look at it like he doesn’t care like it’s nothing odd like it’s a normal doll and it is a normal doll to him oh God you realise he can’t see the auras not on this one or the others and he lied why would he lie why would he lie why would he lie to you why would he put you through this what the hell can he gain by pretending to understand this when he doesn’t need to he’s mocking you and that must be it but why would he mock the person he loves? Unless you’re a joke to him like when Clyde used to laugh at the dumb stuff Bebe said like being stupid was cute like she was his weird pet. ‘ _Is this funny to you?!’_

His eyes widen like they almost never have except for when Pip melted on a table in front of him. ‘What?’

 _‘What?!’_ Hands shake and not from nerves but from the volcano in your head that is making earthquakes in the tectonic plates of your bones and cartilage. ‘You can’t see them, can you—you _lying bastard?!_ ’

‘So what if I can’t really hear your dolls? I’m just trying to support you.’ He’s offended what right does he have to be offended right now when you’re the one who’s been lied to?

‘How, _nnh_ , how is that sup—supporting me?!’

‘I thought if you knew how crazy you looked you’d feel bad.’ 

You could blow and make Craig look like Pip and level this whole house and murder your parents and feel nothing about it but more rage because how dare people die and need funerals when you are dealing with this?! How dare Craig make you feel this way when this is a way you never wanted to feel and never have towards anyone else?! You aren’t crazy and even if you are that doesn’t matter right now because this is real and this is important and you trusted him to understand that!

Something breaks and shatters and you feel the pieces piercing under your skin and at the backs of your eyes. You trusted him.

 ** _[I TRUSTED YOU. I TRUSTED YOU, CRAIG.]_**

It’s an echo. A pain. But you can hear it.

**[I TRUSTED YOU, CRAIG.]**

You can hear yourself.

**I TRUSTED YOU, CRAIG!**

My own words break through me like I’ve never heard them before, because maybe I haven’t.

I TRUSTED YOU, CRAIG!

‘I tru—trusted you, Craig. Why the hell would you lie about this?!’ My hair’s in my hands and the room is purple and my bedspread is soft and there’s hairs from the wool on the floor and I’ve never felt so angry before in my life. Craig has never lied to me before.

Every thought was a feeling until now and every word a buzz in my throat. A buzz isn’t really a sound but a voice is and mine is loud. Livid. 

My skin is cold, the carpet is stiff under my bare feet, and I’m livid.

‘Calm down, Tweek. It’s not that big of a deal.’ He lifts a hand but doesn’t touch me and he better not because I’ll level this whole God damn town if he does. What have I got to lose? Pip’s practically dead, my parents are high and Craig lied to me.

‘Get out.’

‘Wait, honey. Don’t you think you’re overreacting?’

‘Get out!’ Vision shakes like a strong vibrations and so do my hands and legs and chest.

Phone rings. Shouldn’t answer but it’s vibrating against my chest in my flannel pocket and it makes my lungs tight. Pull it out and it’s Michael calling because of course it is. Of course he would call at a time like this. Hit the green button and put it to my ear. Craig is standing in the doorway and watching me because he never listens. ‘What—what do you want?’

_‘I need to use your Kenny doll.’_

Heart stops in my chest and starts up again as I remember my bad feelings. Nothing ended up happening when Pete met up with his friends. He wouldn’t tell me what they did but he did say nothing happened and I’m sure he meant it as in nothing big so they might have been planning something and this is probably it why else would they need a doll connected to Kenny’s soul? All they could do with it is bad stuff like control him or kill him and it’s easiest to kill him oh God they’re going to kill Kenny they’re bastards and haven’t I heard that somewhere before?

_‘Tweak?’_

‘No.’

 _‘Excuse me?’_ Michael’s angry but I don’t care because I’m angry too and while I can’t do much to help Kenny I know how to be unhelpful.

‘I’m—I’m not— _urg_ —helping you. Go to hell, Michael.’ Hand in hair and heart in my throat and eyes unblinking but I’m not scared because I’m not going to be the reason someone else gets hurt.

‘Tweak?’ Craig puts his hand on my shoulder and he better _stop touching me right now_ and get out like I told but he doesn’t listen. ‘What’s wrong?’

Pull out of his grip. ‘St—stop asking me that and just listen for once!’

‘I always listen to you. I just want to help.’

‘No you don’t!’ That isn’t true Craig really does want to help and he always helps me with everything even if it hurts him but that doesn’t matter now because he lied about a huge thing and isn’t doing what I tell him like he doesn’t care what how I feel and I may be helpless sometimes but I don’t want to be treated like I need help I want him to help me because he wants to not because he thinks he should and why is that so hard for him

‘How can I help you right now?’ He’s touching my shoulder again. He looks sincere and I believe he is like he always is but he hasn’t apologised because he always thinks he’s right even when he’s not and I know he’s not because I need this doll to work and that Kenny doll could save his life but Craig couldn’t even see its aura and now we need to save Kenny

‘Ngg, shut up!’ I say to myself and not him but he still looks hurt. Good, he should be. ‘Well, um, err.’ Hairs snap and shake out my hands. We need to save Kenny. ‘Call Clyde!’

He nods and does it. ‘Hey Clyde.’ He covers the receiver. ‘What do I say?’

Head hits shoulder and legs shake and bend in like wires. Sit on the bed. ‘Tell him—tell him to send his brother to Stark’s Pond. Kenny might be, ng, be hurt.’

‘Cartman needs to go to Stark’s Pond. Kenny’s in danger.’ He pauses. ‘I don’t fucking know man, just tell him.’ He hangs up.

He sits beside me on the bed but doesn’t touch me and I’m glad. Don’t say anything. He doesn’t either.

‘I’m, ern, going to!’

Put doll-Kenny in my pants pocket and head downstairs. He follows me out the door but then I push him and send him home. Tell him not to come and yes I’m scared but I’ll help Kenny myself because even if Craig cares he isn’t sorry so I don’t want him around.

He leaves and it’s silent in the way that still has wind blowing and noisy bugs but cuts to my heart because for the first time in two years I haven’t wanted Craig beside me. 


	12. Heartbeat (Pete)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mike takes a turn for the worse and Pete handle take it. He does something impulsive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FUCK this took me forever! The next chapter is short (and the end of ACT 2), so it should be up in the next couple of days.

Mike and I have been dating for ten months. The first time he asked me out was behind the middle school, in front of my friends. I rejected him, of course, and had to talk Michael and Firkle out of mailing him back to Scottsdale. Henrietta was quiet about it. I found out later that she’d already noticed Mike’s crush on me and felt bad for him. She never even considered that I might end up liking him back. I didn’t either, but he wore me down. We didn’t share any of the same classes, but he always found me. He never left me alone. He said he wanted to be friends. Once I knew he liked me, I could see the way the blood rushed to his face and that stupid way he pulled on his fringe when he was nervous. The lisp, which had gone away when he got proper fangs that moulded to his teeth, would come back, like a bad habit, along with the occasional ‘per se?’ tacked onto his questions, making him flush redder. It was cute, I decided. Everything about Mike was cute, and at thirteen I didn’t think I needed to consider anything else before dating someone. I knew I was gay, my friends knew I was gay, and most of the school saw the eyeliner and nail-polish and just assumed it.

The second time Mike asked me out was at his house. We were watching Interview with the Vampire in his bedroom. He suggested it because it’s a mainstream vampire movie, and that’s the shit he likes, and I agreed because of the blatantly homoromantic dynamics between the characters. I said nothing directly, but I’d protested every other vampire movie he’d ever put on, so I hoped he understood.

‘Hey, uh, Pete?’ he asked as Claudia and her new partner were being dragged away.

‘Yeah?’ I laid back against the royal blue bedspread. We were sitting on his double-bed, our shoulders sometimes touching from the lack of space. I could already tell what he was going to say and my heart sped up, beating faster and harder until I could feel it in my neck. I wondered if he could see it, the way my throat pulsed, and if he would enjoy the sight. At the time I thought he would respond with lust and some pseudo-vampire hunger, but now I know he’d just panic, like any time I feel off or different.

‘Do you, um, want to be my date to the school dance, per se?’ He smacked a hand to his mouth and squeezed his eyes shut, his face turning a bright red. It was cute. Embarrassed Mike is my favourite.

I smirked. ‘Dances are for conformist wannabe princess and their whipped boyfriends.’

Mike looked back at the TV, dejected. ‘Oh, right. Sorry.’

‘We can ditch though and go to the diner. Maybe order food for once.’

He grinned. ‘Like a dinner-date?’

‘Obviously.’

He grabbed my and squeezed tighter than necessary. Tighter than was comfortable. But I let him. His hands were warm and sweaty, and I liked it.

A loud beep, followed by a flash of red light pulls me out of my memories, and I’m back in the white hospital room. Two of Mike’s regular nurses rush in, along with a man in scrubs. They huddle around Mike, edging me further and further back until I’m leaning against the dusty window-frame. The say things I don’t understand, but I get the gist. Something’s wrong with Mike and they don’t know how fix it. The man in scrubs yells something about getting Mike into surgery, and I realise he must be a surgeon. He’s young. He better be good enough to help him.

They wheel Mike—unconscious and white and sweaty and shaking like a livewire—out towards the elevator, and I can’t do anything but watch from beside the window, remembering how things used to be and wishing they hadn’t changed. Wishing this weren’t happening. That his problems were still the sort I knew how to fix.

I’m left alone in his empty room for two hours before a tall nurse with a phony smile comes and tells me he’s been moved to ICU. ‘His vitals are back on track, but with these fits becoming more frequent, he’ll be needing around-the-clock monitoring from specialists.’

I thought that’s what they were doing here? What the fuck were all those machines for if they weren’t monitoring him? Fuck this town. ‘What the H are you talking about? Fits?’

Her smile turns sad. ‘He usually has them at night, when you’re at home. He has something akin to a seizure, but his heart beats erratically, then it stops completely for a few seconds, then it becomes erratic again. They pass on their own, but that’s only because his body is strong enough to take it. This one was especially bad.’

The implications are clear. The weaker he gets, the more likely it is that one of these ‘fits’ will kill him, and he’s already struggling to stay conscious. Each time this happens, the staff must think his heart is going to stop for good. He could have died right in front of me. He still might.

‘Can I see him?’ I move faster than intended, and I’m already passing her in the doorway by the time she responds.

‘I’m afraid no one can see him right now. He needs to recover.’

I pause and take in her sad face. The smile is gone. This nurse must like Mike, which isn’t surprising since most people do. She isn’t faking her concern. I decide not to make her job any harder.

‘Okay,’ I nod absently. ‘Can I see him tomorrow?’

‘He should be feeling up to it by then.’ She sounds so optimistic, like she’s talking about a little boy who’s sleeping off a cold, not a dying teen.

‘Cool, thanks.’

When I step into the elevator, my heart is empty. No, worse than that. The walls of the hole in my chest are crumbling, making it bigger, trying to crack my limbs and make my entire body fall apart. I’m unsteady when I step into the hospital foyer. My feet are hovering above the ground, and with each step into nothingness, each step I can’t feel, I don’t know whether to worry about falling or floating away.

All I can think about is Mike.

There’s nothing I can do for him. He’s a few seizures away from hospice care, or so I assume. If I could talk to him, he’d tell me he feels fine and that I’m being a pessimist, but his face would give it away. He’s giving up. His body hurts and he can only tolerate it for so long out of fear for me, for _my_ welling, for not wanting me to be a murderer. He’s so noxiously selfless.

I step onto the sidewalk and Mr Thorn is few meters away, parked outside the hospice centre. He’s standing beside his car. I approach him, but don’t say anything, because there’s nothing to say. I haven’t done shit since we last talked.

‘You need to hurry,’ he says.

‘I know.’ I know I need to hurry, it’s been a week and I haven’t even seen McCormick, let alone tried to feed him magic drug candy. Tweek told me what happened to his boyfriend and I don’t want to be near someone who’s going through that.

I don’t want to see what I’m going to be like when everything is over.

At the core of it, there are only two type of grievers: those who take loss well, and those who don’t. The first bottles their feelings up, continuing working and socialising as if nothing happened, and only letting their true feelings out when alone, and only in ways that are quiet. They don’t want to inconvenience anyone or seem selfish, when things could always be worse. They could be the one dead. Then, there are those who stop eating, who lock themselves in their rooms for days doing nothing but sobbing until their throats and pouring over old photographs of the deceased; they’re the sort who makes such a huge a scene at the funeral that you wonder if theirs’ll be next. From what I’ve heard, Kenny was the latter. I will be, too.

‘I hope you do, kid. That boyfriend of yours isn’t doing too good.’

‘I know,’ I repeat, louder.

‘I doubt he’ll last to the end of the week.’

I’ve been doused in cold water, only it’s under my skin, trying to leak out of the pores in icy pin-pricks. It’s Tuesdays, I remember. It’s already Tuesday.

‘We’ll talk again soon.’ He gets into his car and leaves. I watch, numb, as it disappears onto the highway.

Snow falls onto the white sidewalk, as common here as air, and as white as nothing. I light up a cigarette. Grey smoke in white air. The cars and the voices fade away. Everything is formless and empty and nothing. There’s smoke in my lungs and a cigarette in my hand, but I can’t feel them. There’s nothing here. Nothing that matters enough for me to care right now.

It’s already Tuesday.

‘Pete?’

Larry is behind me, but I don’t turn around. The road is disappearing, slowly, under trickling snowflakes. It’s steady, controlled, the only constant of this shitty little town.

‘Are you alright?’

‘Yeah,’ I lie.

He puts his hand on my shoulder and gently pulls me away from the sidewalk and over to my alley. It pisses me off. He shouldn’t be touching me so casually, let alone dragging me around like some stupid kid. Being Mike’s friend doesn’t entitle him to shit, and I’m tired of reminding him of that. I’m not a marionette. He turns me towards him and he looks concerned.

‘You’re upset.’

I stare at him, unable to properly react to a statement so obvious. Of course I’m upset. I’ve got a lot to be upset about.

‘I mean, more than usual. What happened with Mike today? The nurse won’t let me see him.’ He squeezes my arm and it hurts.

I shove him away, fast and hard enough for him to fall over. His head makes a thump and he hisses with pain. I want to shove him again, but I don’t think I can. I’d fall down too. My heart is in my ears, faster than fan blades, and I’m breathless. There just isn’t enough air here. My lungs are too fucking huge to fill and I might suffocate because of it. My hands are shaking. My legs feel lose, like they can’t take my own weight anymore. This all feels familiar, but different. I don’t know. My thoughts are moving too fast for me to be sure of anything.

Larry frowns. ‘What was that for?’

‘Don’t fucking touch me.’ The words are breathy, and they must have taken all my breath because my vision is getting dark. Just like the first time I saw Mike in the hospital, I think I’m going to collapse.

Larry grabs my arm, again, but this time he has a reason. I didn’t see his stand up, or feel myself falling, but now he’s the only thing keeping me up. He pulls me against his chest and hugs me. I can smell his citrusy cologne, and feel his warm breath on my earlobe. It’s too intimate. I try to push him away but he doesn’t move. ‘Relax, you’re having a panic attack.’ His voice is too loud.

If he’s trying to ground me it’s worked, because I can feel the outline switchblade in my back pocket. I recall something Michael said. A living human, on their own, isn’t worth enough to bring back a dead one. But I don’t want to bring back the dead. Mike isn’t dead yet, I just want to remove a curse.

The adrenaline is back and I’m shaking again, my teeth drowning out the thrum of my heartbeat. Larry holds me tighter and I take advantage of it. Of him and the knife and this energy that won’t calm down.

I reach behind me and pull out the knife. I don’t open it until my hand is behind his back and I stab between his shoulder blades. He stumbles backwards, his eyes wide with shock, and his posture straight. His shoulder blades are rolled back, like you would if someone poked you there unexpectedly.

Except it wasn’t a poke.

I stabbed him.

I realise what I’ve just done at the same moment he does and he tries to run, but he can’t move well with a knife beside his spine, and I pull him back by his shirt. He falls back and the ground drives the blade deeper in. He coughs out blood.

We look at each other. He’s scared of what I’m about to do, but I do nothing. I stand there, watching him bleed. There’s a lump in my throat and it’s keeping down the bile. I don’t want Mike’s best friend to die. It won’t save him. I don’t know what I was thinking—this isn’t a fucking ritual, it’s just murder.

‘I,’ I start to apologise, but it gets caught. My face scrunches up and I cry.

I stand over Larry and cry, but I don’t help him, because I’m self-serving and useless. His face softens in understanding, and he wraps his hand around my ankle. ‘Get someone,’ he whispers. His chest spasms, like he’s holding back a cough.

I nod and take a step. Something hits my shins, the sting knocking me backwards into the brick wall. Michael’s blocking the alley’s entrance, his cane pointed at me, and Firkle is beside him with a sharper, much more expensive knife than mine.

‘What the hell did you do?’ Michael asks.

I shut my eyes.

‘For fuck’s sake.’

Boots crunch on gravel, followed by a half-scream, a muffled voice, and a gasp. Things are silent and I know what I’m going to see before I open my eyes. Larry’s blue shirt is pulled up over his face, covering his throat which I can tell has been cut, and it’s slowly turning a brownish-purple. What I didn’t expect to see was Michael straddling the corpse, red speckling his cheek. Firkle is beside him, knifeless. His pupils are blown but he still looks disappointed. He wanted to be the one to do it.

‘We need to go,’ Michael says. He stands up and wipes his face with his black woollen glove.

I step forwards and nearly fall into him. He puts his arms around my shoulders, and I can hear his heartbeat. It’s so fast. I lean into him. ‘Thank you.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Kenny.


	13. The Taste of Gasoline (Kenny)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things reach their breaking point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End of ACT 2!!!!

I need to get to Stark’s Pond. I know this because, even though I’m still in the suburbs surrounded by lime green and purple houses, I can see it. With every steps my vision wavers and I’m not on the footpath anymore. I’m ducking pine branches and following voices I don’t know but do. I look down and there’s grass as high as my knees. Then it’s concrete. Now it’s both at once. These aren’t my legs and then they are again. I shut my eyes until colour spots appear. They grow until the inside of my eyelids resemble tie-dyed shirts. 

I run towards the forest, where a part of me already is.

It happens again. I’m sure I’m going crazy. In truth, I already knew that, but I didn’t think it’d get this bad so quickly. I see the pond I’m not at yet. I get a quick flash every few steps, and the person who’s eyes I’ve hijacked is not moving. He’s watching something. People. I don’t know what they’re doing. No matter how tightly I grasp the details they still leak out of my head like fluid after an ear infection. The flashes get longer and I lose my sense of place. I’m not sure where I am until I see the South Park sign.

I slow down at the gravel footpath. My feet ache and my black dress-shoes are scuffed to high hell. I follow the path like muscle-memory to the place where the fire-girl danced. Assuming that really happened.

I’m not a nerd like Kyle, but in a town like South Park you need to cling to the facts in order to avoid insanity. I no longer know what is fact anymore. The closer I get to the tree stump the more recent events become muddled.

The vision I had with Butters wasn’t the first. I tried to ignore what I felt at the elementary school, but I can’t. That wasn’t the first either. But what I was about to remember drips out of my ear. 

I see the Goths. Their silver jewellery catches on the moonlight. Henrietta mutters something, reading from a thick book, and lights a candle. Despite the darkness, I can see everything. They’re gathered around the stump, which has once again been converted into an alter. This time it has a photo of Anya on it, as well as a doll of me. Tweak groans from somewhere behind them. Craig isn’t with him. It registers that that’s the part of this which shocks me the most, and that’s sad. 

No one should expect this breed of bullshit. No one outside of South Park would. But history doesn’t lie, and looking at my history, what else could I have found?

Stark’s Pond used to be a place for ice-skating and drunken hooks-ups. No one hooks-up here anymore and it’s because of us. High schooler’s are blue-balling because a bunch of middle-schoolers wanted a place to light stuff on fire.

Michael spots me first. He frowns, like he wasn’t expecting me. Yeah right.

‘What the fuck?’ I say.

The others look at me too. Tweek grabs onto his hair and watches me with the same unblinking eyes as when we first met. ‘I’msosorryman. I tried to stop them, Iswear! ButwhatwasIsupposedtodo? Idon’tevenknowwhat’shappening!’

Pete side-eyes Tweak like he actually understood what he just said. They both look paler than normal, and I don’t know why I care.

‘You’re early,’ Michael says.

‘No shit. What’s going on?’

Michael takes step forwards and Tweak yells his name. He pauses, jaw clenched.

Tweek drags his hands through his hair and down his face. Broken strands float down like off a shedding dog. He shrieks. It’s a sharp, inhuman sound.

I throw my hands over my ears on instinct, and the other’s do the same. All except for Michael.

After a few second of panting, Tweak yells ‘Run!’ like that’s what that horrific noise was supposed to mean.

It doesn’t register quick enough and then Michael’s arm is around my neck. He pulls be backwards towards the alter and I try to elbow him, but he wraps his other arm around stomach so I’m flat against his chest. His heart is beating faster than mine, like the buzz of a rodent’s. But he’s barely a roach at this point.

He yells for the others to get ready. Henrietta pulls out a book while Firkle picks up a bottle and a matchbox. Tweek tries to run to me but Pete catches him around the waist and holds me back. Even in the red glow of fire, Pete looks green. 

Michael throws me down on top of the stump. The glass of the photo-frame break under my spine, and the candle burns my arched back. Smoke from Kevin’s old suit jacket tingles my nose. It’s the typical smell of burning mixed with years of sweat and dirt and life. I lay across the stump with my legs hanging off one end and my head off the other, with a hand on my throat. I can’t breath. I kick out and the kick lands on his shin, but he doesn’t move. His eyes show nothing.

Firkle tips something over my face and chest. I taste gasoline. Everyone is speaking at once and there’s so much noise. Tweek is screaming again. Henrietta is reciting words I don’t understand. But over it all I catch the grate of a match being lit. Then, I see it.

Firkle’s thin fingers drop the match.

The hand leaves my throat and it stings all over. White-hot needle-prick stinging. Then nothing. I can do nothing as all sound turns to crackles and then I can’t feel my body at all. 

My thoughts all turn to white, expect for one. A voice. It yells something I’m sure I’ve heard before.

_It's not pretty cool, Kyle! It fucking hurts!_

Oh.

I remember now.


	14. Peak of the Summit (Tweak)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The immediate aftermath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another weirdly timed update. Thank you so much everyone (especially lem0nxbOy) for all the support! I may end up needing more than the assumed 20 chapters.

Grey ash powder nothing in the dirt on the wood without bones or skin or clothes. Gone no body no face or doll nothing but the glow. Glowing blue and green from the bracelet I gave. Blessed and blood-tied and everything Pip said it had to be to do something but it did nothing to help Kenny it did nothing but not burn up. The grass is turned grey and white like a charcoal picture and the bracelet sits smoking in the grooves of the pulpit.

Smells like sulphur and sweat and rubbery hot-tingle burn. Like old clothes on a tire-fire, not what you’d expect from the sum of a person, but neither is the ash.

Kneel down. Pray for the soul of the body too frail to hold it. The body turned to pieces and more pieces again, cut down to the colour’s edge of the world then more when others would have only charred. He burst into stardust like a push from a supernova.

I tried to save him, came down here to confront them and beg Pete to do the right thing like he knows Mike would have and I know he can because I’ve seen it before but he’s weak. I want to be mad but I can’t because I was also weak when it mattered, when Pip was half-lifed and there was nothing I could say to make it stop. Pete’s repeating history because that’s how history works. It goes round and round with no one learning and nothing changing until we all suicide self-destruct together because someone always has to die. Tragedy comes in threes or so someone said and now we’re at the peak of the summit.

Three people are dead now and I really didn’t want the last one to be him I didn’t want it to be anyone so I reach for the bracelet. The bracelet that should have made it right is still warm in my hand stays warm until someone snatches it away from me. Cartman is ketchup-stained blotch-red-faced with swollen eyes white-hot blinded to nothing but he still glares at me. The hand with the bracelet is shaking and I want it back but something, maybe the doll part or maybe intuition or maybe guilt, says to let him keep it. Hand still reaches though and he shoves me. Not as hard as he can or even hard enough to make me fall and I wonder when he got so weak.

‘Kenny was my best friend and this is all I have left of him, thanks to you asshole!’ he snaps without fire. No fire in his voice or eyes only sleep. Sleep like someone who could sleep forever. I know that feeling and I what it’s like when the grip on the fire is too weak to hold and everything becomes too much too heavy for a single heart to stay rounded. I wish I knew when he got here and just how much he saw and just how much he knows about what we’ve done.

‘ _Grr_ , he was my f-friend too.’ I don’t want to fight him. Something tells me something real that happened maybe a long time ago and maybe not to me, I don’t know, that I can trust him.

Michael shoves Cartman back and there’s a fresh cigarette in his hand and fresh apathy in his mouth as he say, ‘get the fuck out of here, Lardass.’

I can trust Cartman and I won’t fight Cartman, he doesn’t deserve that, but this is all Michael’s fault. It’s his fault and my body is moving and Cartman is moving voices are _screaming_ like smoke around my eyes more smoke everywhere like it’s never going to dissipate like the fire will never cinder and _there are hands on my back_ and on my face and _oh shit!_ I’m on top of Michael, my hands on his throat and his eyes are wide like I don’t know why it’s still hard to see but Pete yells in my ear and I know it’s him pulling on my shirt. He pulls me up and puts his arms around me and follows Cartman out of the forest.

I kick out and _scream_ and _scream_ and _scream_ _AND SCREAM_ like I never have in my life because I never have felt like this in my life and resonance rage bounce waves fill my body and I can’t stop shaking and I can’t stop opening my mouth because it needs to go. Michael needs to go and nothing Damien can say would ever make me okay with what’s just happened here. 

When I can see again Cartman is gone and so are the trees and we’re near a house, Craig’s house. Pete’s arm is around my waist holding me up like someone who loves me might and I know now how much I need my Craig back. I pull away and run for the door not run stumble and fall and the painted wood is jagged and smooth against my cheek until it opens and I’m gone.

*

Wake up in Craig’s bed in Craig’s house with Craig next to me. He’s playing on his phone but turns it off when he sees me and smiles that smile that’s only for me and only when he’s worried so worried and I’m so glad he’s worried and not mad at me because even if I’m still mad I don’t know what I’d do without Craig. I tried to do the right thing without Craig and nothing happened I could do nothing but be stupid stupid stupid and try to hurt Michael who could have killed me for that if he really wanted to. Oh God I hope he doesn’t want to. I’d need Craig to protect me and it’s too soon to ask him for stuff when I was so bad last night bad and mad mad mad at him when he deserved it hell yeah he deserved it but I need him even if he’s a liar he’s here for me now when I really need him. He’s always here when I need him. Even when he doesn’t believe me, he’s always here.

He puts his hand on my forehead and smooths back my hair like a mother like a gentle touch like love. ‘Hey.’

I smile shaky and crooked and tired and tell him ‘I love you,’ because it’s true and he needs to here it.

‘Love you, too. I sorry for last night. I don’t think you’re crazy. You’re weird,’ he smiles, ‘but also really brave.’ He leans down and kisses my head and leans his head on my shoulder even with the dig bones can’t be comfortable and it’s perfect.

‘Thanks, Craig. That’s all I— _gnh_ —wanted to hear.’ He fixed it like Craig always does. He fixed what was wrong because he knows me like no one else, and he’s someone who will never leave me. I know that, now. I believe that.

‘Pete told me what happened. Will you be okay?’

Like he knows everything else, he knows I’m not okay so he doesn’t ask that he asks what matters and what I hope I know the answer too because if he’s stays with me the answer is ‘ _nh_ , yeah, I—I think so. We got to do something soon, though.’

‘Hm?’

‘His—his family don’t know what happened. Oh God, they must be so worried!’ Arm twitches and Craig’s head bounces. He groans. ‘Sorry.’

‘It’s okay.’ His voice is smiling now and I’m happy even if I’m not because there’s still stuff we have to do for Kenny because I couldn’t save him even though I tried my best and I said I could and I owe him for that. ‘Want to go to his house?’

‘Yeah. Thanks, Craig.’ I don’t know why I’m thanking him and he doesn’t ask.

*

Karen is on the grass with mess hair and no shoes and I know she knows why we’re here by the look in her eyes. There’s death in her eyes and I bet there’s death in mine too. She leans back against the house and looks up at us with a strong posture spine like a pillar but I can see through it. She knows why we’re here.

‘What happened to him?’ she asks. Her voice is older now than it was last week than it has any right to be and I remember Mongolians and bazookas and too many funerals for kids I can’t remember. How old were we then?

‘He’s he’s at—t Cartman’s. Sl _eeee_ p-over.’ Pulls hair and arms shake and Craig grabs my arm, ready to back me up in my cruel lie.

She doesn’t believe me I can see that, but she nods. ‘I’ll tell mum and dad.’

Nod too hard.

She looks at the doll in her lap. Dirty with a pink dress but not as old as everything else in the yard. ‘Can you talk to Anya?’ Casual voice not confused or grieved.

‘What?!’ I ask because she shouldn’t know what I can do and I’m sick of hearing about that same dead girl. Bad things happen to those who miss her.

‘Kenny could, that’s why he took her body. I could hear him through the walls, but I never heard her. He wasn’t crazy, you know.’

‘I know.’

She looks in my eyes and they’re the same as her brother’s. There’s something left of him in her.

We start to walk home and I remember something I was thinking about earlier.

Sometimes my thoughts don’t make sense and I remember stuff that didn’t happen but still might have. Like the time I slept over at Cartman’s house with Stan and Kyle. We bought sea monkeys. I wonder where that thought came from because I’ve never stayed over at Cartman’s we barely know each other and if I did Kenny would have been there. Kenny was Cartman’s best friend, he said so. We were just kids in that memory but we didn’t go to the same elementary school, otherwise I’d have gone to school with Craig and I’d remember that, wouldn’t I? But then how do I know who Cartman’s friends are?

Craig squeezes my hand. I stopped walking and he’s looking at me like he’s waiting for something bad to happen but I’ve had enough bad for now, so I let those thoughts go.


	15. Hoping for Hope (Pete)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of the ritual, from Pete's perspective.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... I hate this chapter. The reason this took so long was because I kept going back and forwards on whether or not to re-write it, but I ultimately decided that it is what it is. It's pretty long considering next to nothing happens in it (apologies), but it was necessary enough for what's coming up. 
> 
> The next chapter (Tweek) should be really eventful, but after that I have no outline, so very little direction. I know a few crucial details and how I want things to end, but how we'll be getting there is hazy. I'll finish it, though. I've put way too much effort into this story to ever abandon it, so even if there's another couple-month gap, know that I haven't moved on. 
> 
> Thanks,   
> Rory

We sit on Henrietta’s bedroom floor and no one says anything. Henrietta’s playing with her lighter, eyes focused intently on the flame. I don’t know if she’s thinking about what happened or just trying not to look at us. She’s being uncharacteristically pensive. Firkle’s beside her, but his head’s bowed to the carpet, not doing or looking at anything specific. The kid’s had a tough day. Maybe he would’ve been better off if we’d cut ties with him when we left the elementary school. We could’ve given him the time and incentive to make other friends, find normal hobbies, and left him out of all this. But Michael would never have allowed that.

Michael has his back to the wall beside the door, as far away from the rest of us as he can get, but he still meets my eyes with the same blank look he always has. Arrogance. That look reeks of arrogance and I can’t stand it. He—we—killed someone today for no reason. I knew it wasn’t going to work, I told him that, but he never listens. He didn’t care what his and Damien’s little experiments might cost. Tweek’s face flashes in my mind, his wild eyes, hair stuck to his forehead from sweat. That scream. That fucking scream that left my head sore and my ears ringing—the perfect soundtrack for the kind of night we’ve had.

Then, I see Larry.

Right. Larry, the other person we killed. I’d forgotten. How could I forget that? Two dead in one day and we gained nothing. No Mike. No Anya. Michael puts out what’s left of a cigarette. I glare at him. His face remains the same, but he cocks his head slightly, like he’s asking what the problem is.

‘Pete,’ Henrietta says. I look at her and she shakes her head. She’s looking at me for the first time since we left the forest and her face is sad. There’s ash smeared on her cheek that she normally would have wiped away by now. It takes all the fight out of me.

‘I’m going home,’ I say.

She nods.

I don’t look at Michael as I pass him, but I feel his eyes on me.

Moments after I close the bedroom door behind me, I hear it reopen. I sigh and pray to no one in particular that this will be over quickly. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ Michael demands.

I move my eyes from the stairs to the photos lining the walls. A happy couple. The happy couple and their son. The happy couple and Henrietta. There are no pictures of her and Bradley together, and I wonder if she regrets that. It’s been nearly five years now since he disappeared. ‘I’m going home. Just leave me alone.’

‘Oh, please.’ He scoffs. ‘Stop this guilty, holier-than-thou bullshit, I did this for you.’

‘You did it for yourself!’ I spin around, fingers bunching into the sides of my jacket. My vision wavers and I have the urge to bar my teeth at him like a rabid dog. ‘You did it because you joined some bullshit cult that made you believe your family was more important than everyone else’s! More important than McCormick and Tweek and that little British kid we watched get mutilated!’ I take a deep breath. Bile rises in my throat and I swallow it. ‘I’m done. I’m not going to kill any more of my classmates over some dead bitch I didn’t know. Jesus Michael, she isn’t coming back, and you need to deal with it.’ 

He takes a step closer. His eyes widen with some kind of mania, and if I hadn’t known him for so long, I’d be scared. ‘I did it to help you, Assface. Anya can save Mike. I know what I’m talking about, and you know it too, or else you wouldn’t have showed up tonight. I’m trying to fucking help you here but you’re too weak to do what needs to be done, so I do it—I did what had to be done to keep Larry from ratting you out—remember that?—and I did what had to be done so you can have your precious vampfag boyfriend back.’ 

‘Anya isn’t Isis and Damien isn’t Osiris! You’ve been conned! If Damien’s anything, it’s the fucking devil!’

His face shutters, and the glare he turns on me is the most hateful thing I’ve ever seen. ‘Get out.’

As I stumble down the stairs, going as quickly as I can with legs like loose thread, I can feel my chest emptying out into a breezy hole.

*

I don’t go home. Instead, I start the long walk to the hospital. I know it’s late, and it’s going to be even later when I get there, and I’m definitely not going to be allowed to see him, but I don’t know what else to do with myself. Every moment away from the hospital feels like an interlude, like I’m just filling in time until I can get back to where I’m supposed to be. Even what happened with Larry can’t keep me away. If anything, that makes me need to see him more. Bad shit keeps happening when I’m away from Mike, worse and worse bad shit, but if I can just stay with him, maybe I won’t have to be a part of this anymore. I can wait it all out with him, until he’s got no waiting left.

The air’s frosty, like it always is in a town covered in a constantly renewing layer of snow, but I feel it more tonight. It makes me shiver.

I put my hand in my pocket and roll the sticky, warm ball that Mr Thorn gave me around in my fingers. With no one to give it to, what am I supposed to do with it? Throw it out? I better not. It’s probably poison, anyway. I suppose that could be useful.

Turning down the next street, I see a familiar figure step out of a nearby house. It’s that fat kid who eavesdropped on our ritual earlier. McCormick’s friend. ‘Hey!’ he yells and comes barrelling off his front porch. ‘You’re one of those faggy douchebags from the forest!’ There’s no malice in his voice; in fact, he sounds excited. He stops in front of me and hunches forward, panting, like the ten-metre walk took a ton out of him. 

‘Yeah, what of it?’ I say and pull out a cigarette. It gets halfway to my mouth and I pause. All the heat drains from my face as I stare at the kid’s eye. ‘What the fuck happened?’

He covers it with his palm, grimacing. ‘I don’t fucking know, man. I don’t know.’ He sighs and lowers his hand again. I take a good look at his completely white eye. No pupil. No iris. Nothing. It wasn’t like that earlier—I would have noticed. Even with all the bullshit going on, this is something I would have noticed. I think back and recall that I did, in fact, notice that there was something wrong with this guy’s eye at the time, but it wasn’t this. ‘It was bleeding until a couple hours ago, like the veins had torn open, but now it’s like…’ he pauses, then sneers. ‘This is none of your fucking business.’

I remember why I’m standing here. ‘Did you want something?’ I put the cigarette between my lips, but don’t light it yet.

‘Yeah, give this to that twitchy freak for me.’ He shoves something into my chest, nearly knocking me off balance, and I grab onto it. It’s a blue bracelet. Kenny’s bracelet.

‘Didn’t you want this? Because he was your best friend or something?’

He shrugs. ‘I did, but now it keeps doing weird ghost shit and I’m not dealing with that.’ He doesn’t wait for my response, instead heading back towards his house, muttering something along the lines of ‘why does he always come to me?’

*

Aside from the elderly nurse at the front desk, no one else is in the foyer. She’s here most nights. She usually nods at me when I pass her for the elevator. This time, she raises an eyebrow, like she hadn’t expected to see me here, and I frown. I’ve been here every night for two weeks; she shouldn’t think that Mike being moved would change that. I’m not shutting down on him again.

‘You are aware of Mr Makowski’s change in circumstances, aren’t you?’ she asks.

‘Yeah, I was here when they moved him.’

‘Then you should know that your friend isn’t allowed visitors at the moment. We only allow two people to visit ICU patients at a time, and only in the afternoon. I expect his parents will want spend that time with him.’ She gives me a stern look, like she thinks I’m being selfish for wanting to see my hospitalised boyfriend, like me seeing him is somehow taking something from his parents. I take a deep breath and force myself to stay calm. I already knew this would happen, I remind myself. They didn’t always let me in at night when he was in the cardiac ward, so of course I can’t see him now, that isn’t even what I came here for. And Mrs Makowski isn’t a raging bitch like this chick, so no matter where they move him, she’ll still let me see her son.

‘I just wanted to see how he is. Has there been any change since this afternoon?’ _Has he gotten worse?_

She shakes her head, her expression changing from annoyed to pitying. ‘Same as always, I’m afraid.’

I nod. ‘That’s what I thought.’

‘Pete?’ Mrs Makowski and her husband step out of the elevator. Her skin looks pale and sunken, like she hasn’t eaten or slept properly in weeks. Which is the truth. Adam, who drags her home for a few hours each day to make sure she showers and sleeps, is the only reason she hasn’t been living in Mike’s room. I have a grudging respect for Mike’s embarrassing step-father, if only because he knows how to keep his wife from falling apart. I wish I could be that strong.

‘How you doing, kiddo?’ Adam asks, giving me a tired smile.

‘Were you with Mike?’ I don’t answer his question, since I don’t think he wants to know the real answer, and it’d be inconsiderate to lie and say I’m doing fine when I’ve been here, like them, watching their son collapse from the inside.

He shakes his head and puts his arm around his wife’s shoulders, guiding her towards the door. He gestures with his head for me to follow. ‘We just finished having a late dinner in the cafeteria.’

‘That’s good,’ I say, looking at Mrs Makowski. Her arms are shaking, like they have been every time I’ve seen her lately, and I can’t help staring at the loose skin. She used to be bulky woman, but now it’s like she’s made of fabric, draped straight over porous bone.

‘Would you like a lift home?’ He helps his wife into the passenger seat, then opens the back door for me. I consider refusing, but I can see Mike’s mother watching me through the window, and I don’t want to give her another reason to worry.

‘Yeah, thanks.’

At first the drive is silent. Adam doesn’t even turn on the radio. But then he asks me, ‘have you had dinner yet? We can get you something from the drive-thru, if you’d like.’

My stomach tightens at the thought of Mike’s parents buying me food while he’s going through who-knows-what in the hospital, because of me. ‘No, thank you.’

‘Are you sure? It’s no trouble. Don’t take this the wrong way, but you don’t look like you’ve been eating properly. I know we aren’t your parents, but we still care about you.’

My throat tightens, and the void in my chest, the one full of cool air that blows straight into my bones, widens. ‘I’m okay.’

‘Are you su—’

‘Of course he’s not okay!’ Mrs Makowski snaps, cutting off her husband. ‘He doesn’t have to be okay! Just… let us not be okay.’

He sighs. ‘I’m sorry Margaret. I get that, I do. I just don’t see why we need to lose more than one kid to this.’

‘You haven’t lost Mike,’ I say.

‘Pete,’ she has tears in her voice. ‘We had a long, long… long talk with Mike’s doctors today. They’re…they are, um, considering palliative care.’

For a moment, the world stops turning, the car isn’t moving, and no one, anywhere, makes a sound. ‘You didn’t agree,’ I say, because they couldn’t have. There’s no way.

‘Not yet.’

I shut my eyes and try to keep myself from throwing up.

Please, God, no more death today.

They pull up outside the trailer park and Mrs Makowski turns around in her seat. She puts her hand on my leg and gives me a teary smile. ‘We’ll pick you up tomorrow morning, okay? You can spend the day with him.’

I nod, numbly, and wonder if I ever could’ve prevented this, or if we were all doomed from the start. I’ve been wracking my brain for a solution, doing stupid shit since the beginning of Mike’s ‘illness’, hoping for hope—for anything that might undo this. But things still happened the way they would have if I weren’t even here. Maybe this is fate. Maybe this is just what happens in South Park, and living here means a life of drawn-out, unavoidable tragedy.


End file.
